The International Press Institute (IPI) today condemned the murder of a journalist in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu who was shot down as she left the local university where she was studying, and it called on local and national authorities to bring the killers to justice.

Three unidentified gunmen targeted Sagal Salad Osman, a producer of state-run SNTV and Radio Mogadishu, yesterday as she left Plasma University. According to local news reports, the assailants escaped as bystanders rushed to the scene and Osman died shortly thereafter.

Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, international news outlets reported that the al Qaeda-linked group al Shabaab was suspected of coordinating it. However, media outlets noted that regional warlords, criminals and even government officials are also regularly considered suspects in cases of attacks on journalists.

“Journalists in Somalia frequently face threats to their lives”, IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis said today. “As authorities have attempted to combat extremism in the country, they have done far too little to protect journalists who face very real danger as a result of their profession. We urge Somali authorities to bring Ms. Osman’s killers to justice and to demonstrate that such violence will not be met with impunity.”

Journalists in Somalia complain that threats against them are rarely investigated and that authorities fail to offer protection to journalists targeted.

According to IPI’s Death Watch, at least 23 journalists have died in relation to their work in Somalia since August 2012, when the first permanent central government, backed by the U.N., was instituted following decades of civil war that began in 1991 with the fall of the regime of President Siad Barre.