Suspected al-Shabaab gunmen raided the home of a Somali reporter in the central town of Baidoa, shooting him, his wife and another person dead, local police said.
Authorities are investigating the late Wednesday attack that targeted Daud Ali Omar, a local radio journalist, police officer Abdi Hussein said by phone from the town, about 220 kilometers (137 miles) northwest of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.
Islamist militant group al-Shabaab, which temporarily controlled Baidoa until its recapture by Ethiopian and Somali troops in 2012, may have carried out the murders, Hussein said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Somalia is Africa’s deadliest country for media workers, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Two journalists were killed and three wounded in suicide bombings in Baidoa in December, while a photographer was wounded in a shooting in Mogadishu earlier this month. On April 3, Somali authorities raided a media office, closed two radio stations and arrested staff, according to the CPJ.
