Unidentified gunmen shot dead the director of an independent radio station and wounded a journalist in the Somali capital Mogadishu, station officials said on Sunday, according to Xinhua.
Muqtar Mohamed Hirabe, the director of Shabelle radio station, and his colleague Ahmed Omar Hashi, news editor of the station, were attacked by two men armed with pistols who fired several shots at the newsmen.
Hirabe died on the scene while Hashi managed to escape after being shot in the arm and abdomen, eyewitnesses said.
"We do not know who was behind the killing of the director and the injury of the editor," Abdurrahman Al Adala, editor-in-chief of Shabelle radio, told Xinhua.
Hashi was rushed to the main Medina hospital after he managed to get the help of local residents. Doctors at the hospital said he was operated on and is responding well to treatment. His injury is not life-threatening, they said.
Hirabe, 48, is the fifth media person to be killed in Somalia since the start of this year. He is also the third journalist from Radio Shabelle murdered this year. He is survived by two wives and five children.
Local radio stations have cut off their usual programs in solidarity with their colleagues and have been broadcasting a recitation of the Koran, the holy book of Islam.
The local media organization, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), expressed shock at the death and injury of the two journalists.
"(The) assassination of Muktar Mohamed Hirabe is a premeditated and targeted killing.... (the) situation is beyond condemnation. Somali journalists are not dying because of the conflict," Omar Faruk Osman, NUSOJ secretary general, said in a statement.
"Ahmed Omar Hashi is a living witness of serous crimes constantly committed against journalists. While hoping immediate recovery, colleagues who are committed to do their job in this extreme situation need to be protected,", Faruk added.
NUSOJ noted that June 7 was the first anniversary of the murder of Nasteh Daher Farah, the vice president of the National Union of Somali Journalists in the southern port town of Kismayu.
In a separate development, the director of the Somali-language TV station's Mogadishu office, Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, "Jeekey", who had been kidnapped on the outskirts of Mogadishu early this week by unknown gunmen, was on Sunday released by the kidnappers.
Somalia, a country that has been plagued by chaos and lawlessness for nearly two decades, is considered to be the worst place for journalists to work after Iraq.