Radio station director Barkhad Awale Adan was killed yesterday amidst fighting between Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and Islamist insurgent group Al Shabab in Mogadishu, the National Union of Somali Journalists reported.Adan, 60, who ran the community station Hurma Radio, was fixing a transmitter on the roof of the station when he was hit by fire from a gunfight in the neighbourhood, reports said. He was taken to Medina hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.

Hurma Radio is located in a building shared with several NGOs in the government-controlled KM 5 Area, only half a kilometre from the government frontline in the fight against Shabab insurgents, said NUSOJ programme coordinator Mohammed Ibrahim, speaking on the phone to IPI from Nairobi today. Fighting has raged in the Somali capital for the past three days, and Adan’s death came on the same day as Shabab militants dressed as government soldiers stormed a Mogadishu hotel and killed 30 guests, including six Somali lawmakers.

Adan, who had worked for Radio Mogadishu until the government fell in 1991, was a well known figure among journalists in the city.

“It is a great loss, we feel we lost a great fellow,” Ibrahim told IPI. “He used to help all the journalists and gave us advice. We miss him so much and are mourning for him.”

On Monday 23 August, Shabab insurgents took over Holy Quran Radio (IQK), a privately owned station based in north Mogadishu, NUSOJ reported in a statement the next day. The insurgents reportedly delivered a letter to the management, announcing that they were taking over operations. NUSOJ expressed their fear that “the channel will be used as a medium to spread hate messages and to propel the campaign for violence and bloodshed against Somali people.”

IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said: “We are deeply saddened to hear that Somalia has lost Barkhad Awale Adan to the ongoing violence. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends and colleagues. It is tragic that, in their noble and courageous quest to keep the public informed about a brutal conflict, journalists like Barkhad Awale Adan are made to pay with their lives.”