A somber mood engulfed Somali capital Mogadishu today after journalists downed their tools and shut down their broadcasting stations to mourn and to protest the latest killing of Radio Shebele director, Muktar Mohamed Hirabe. 15 senior radio journalists of editors, producers, reporters, and anchors held a press conference at Hotel Sahafi today and announced the work stoppage.

Muktar Hirabe who was in the company of his colleague Ahmed Omar Hashi, was on Sunday (7 June) shot five times by a gunman at Bakara market in Mogadishu. Ahmed Omar who described the attack and killing as “vindictive and barbaric” was also injured in the attack. Muktar is the fifth journalist to be killed in Somalia by gunmen this year alone, and according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) the death is a confirmation that the Somali journalist has become a serious target of those who are averse to truth.

“We are sad but we won’t relent, we are concerned but won’t be afraid. We will march on as journalists despite the assassins' bullet that has been falling us one by one,” said NUSOJ secretary-general, Omar Faruk Osman, while supporting and commending the journalists decision to engage in the black-out picketing in protest to the killing of their colleagues.

But as the journalists carried on with their protests, six journalists have reported to NUSOJ having received death threats from named people, whom they said would be held responsible should they be killed.

“We would go further than just to condemn this killing by calling on all parties engaged in the Somali conflict to respect the life and work of a journalist. Let the killing end. We condemn the continued murders with impunity in Somalia. We now demand that the international community should take serious attention in this Horn of Africa country that has been transformed into more or less a butchery of journalists,” Omar said.

He said the killing must be condemned with all the contempt it deserves. "We must not only stop at talking about senseless killings in Somalia but must do everything possible to bring to book the perpetrators of the killings. If we in Somalia are also part of the international community, then it is high time the international community intervened in solidarity with the people and journalists of Somalia,” he said.

“It was another savage killing of a journalist in Somalia; the fall of our beloved Muktar Mohamed Hirabe was dreadful, devastating and tragic. We are still mourning and sharing in grief with those he left behind (his family), may Allah bless his soul and give him a place in the JANNAH and also wish a better life hereafter, AMIN” said a weeping Mogadishu journalist, whose name cannot be identified because he fears for his life.

“Muktar Mohamed Hirabe was a dearly loved colleague who worked with dedication and a great sense of teamwork. He was not at any time deterred by danger and I still remember him joking in my office, a day before the merciless butchers shot him brutally, wounding our other colleague Ahmed Tajir, not too far away from my office. He was our elder brother in the profession, solver of our problems, and advice-giver as a qualified colleague,” the un-named journalist said.

“I heard gunshots and a friend came to me running to the office where I was busy writing saying: 'Hey did you hear the gunshots? He asked me and swiftly followed with an answer even before I said a word, ‘Two men were shot and one of them is dead out there,” he narrated.

“I pulled my drawer quickly and picked up my camera to reach the scene in order to take photos of the victims without knowing that two of my close colleagues had been shot. I got out running with the camera but before I reached the scene where the lifeless body of brother Hirable lay, another friend who saw him came to me and told me that the dead body is Hirabe's. ‘Hey! Get back to your office before you are found, there is the dead body of your friend Hirabe’ he told me. I was shocked and stopped on the spot without moving towards any direction for about several minutes. I could not move my legs for some minutes due to shock, and I later got back to my office without seeing the dead body of my colleague”.

“I was terrified and started thinking about what has happened to my colleague for a long time and my eyes started welling up in tears. On Monday, I went to attend a press conference held by Hassan Dahir Aweys but still I’m down in the dumps, vulnerable and doomed to failure and fear.”

“We know who killed Hirabe and other colleagues but we cannot speak. We can simply say the same oppressors that assassinated our late colleagues are the same ones who gunned down Hirabe. I believe that other fellow journalists like me are also kept in the waiting list of those enjoying committing crimes and killing journalists with the highest level of impunity. They keep killing the harmless journalists who have nobody to defend them but God.”

According to Ahmed Omar Hashi, They first shot Hirabe at the back of his head and he fell face down. I managed to escape with gunshots in my stomach. It was devilish assassination. I glanced back and saw a youth in his early 20s standing on Hirabe and shooting Hirabe in the head. It was the most savage and violent action I have ever witnessed,” Ahmed Omar Hashi said.

Abdriahman Yusuf, the editor of Shabele radio, also said that the killing of Hirabe resembles that of Said Tahlil Ahmed who was killed on 4 February this year.

“They Shot Hirabe in the head, just like they did to Said Tahlil. They are killing every journalist in this country and their aim is to eliminate us all,” Abdirahman said.

The burial ceremony of Hirabe was disrupted shortly after four hooded men appeared and scared away his journalist colleagues who fled in fear, leaving behind the body to be buried by some of his relatives and neighbors.