In 2005, While moderating an environment debate at a local forum in Mogadishu, I noticed a cloud of grief descending and rolling over the audience in a wave-like motion, wiping joy away from faces beamed with pleasure a few minutes ago. News of the murder of a young female journalist crept in and was passed on in whispers until it degenerated into a full blown snivel of anger and tears.

We closed the session immediately and rushed to the Radio station to discover more. She was killed by an unkown gunman while covering a story in Afgoi, Somalia. At the Studio I met with Mahad Ahmed Elmi he cooproducer and head of the Capital voice section affiliated with the Voice of America and expressed my deepest sympathy to him. But Mahad himslef was not spared as he was shot dead too, while en-route to his office. I was in Djibouti when the new was divulged to me by a friend. In sending a condolence, I wrote an e-mail to Ali Iman Shermarke, a co-founder of the Horn Afrik who was a staunch activist of peace and freedom of expression.

But in the afternoon when I started surfing the internet, with the hope of getting a reply from Mr. Shermarke, a news item exploded in my face like bomb. It was the death of Mr. Shermarke who was killed in a car roadside explosion few minutes after the burial of his colleague, Mr. Elmi.

Then situation went worse and I lost more friends in the cross fire or in direct shooting of the journalists. Yesterday I lost one more friend, the director of the Horn Afrik Radio and Television, Said Tahlil Warsame who was called for a press conference but received several shots in the head while heading to the so called conference. He was conspired by enemies of peace in Somalia, in particular Mogadishu.

Though I left the place over a year now, I still live with horror and nightmare as a result of continuous murder of innocent Somalis who are victimised by virtue of their profession and beliefs.
Please share the pain with me as you did many times before and pray for Somalia, in whatever religion you believe, please pray for Somalia to get peace and to deliver God from the chains of the devil.