Hiiraan Online

It is a great honor for me to stand here tonight as the first Somali journalist to win this award. By recognizing me, you are also recognizing the courage of the small band of working journalists still in Somalia. And you are paying tribute to those reporters who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their profession.

One such was my friend, Muktar Hirabe. How he would have loved to be here tonight to see some of the biggest names in journalism in the world honoring a young reporter from Mogadishu. Muktar not only ran one of the few independent radio stations in Mogadishu, he was also a mentor to me and many other Somali journalists.

In June this year, I heard firing. I ran out of my office with my small camera to see what happened. I saw a lifeless body lying in the street in a pool of blood. A colleague told me it was Muktar. I froze. I couldn’t move, forwards or backwards. Eventually I returned to the office but I could do nothing. It was not even safe enough for me to attend his funeral or extend condolences to his family.

Just one month earlier, another friend of mine had been killed. Abdirisak Warsame was even younger than me. Just twenty-four years old. Abdirisak was caught in crossfire after leaving his radio station in Bakara Market, which has become a killing field in Mogadishu. This year alone six of my colleagues have been killed in Somalia. That makes it the deadliest country in Africa for journalists. No one has had to answer for their deaths.

For my entire life, I’m twenty-seven years old, there has been no effective central government in Somalia. It’s a failed state. That makes it so dangerous to be a reporter because there is no police, no army, and no court system to back you up if you get in trouble. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, your support is so vital to me, and to my courageous colleagues who every day brave the bullet-scarred streets to bring you news of our unending civil war.

There used to be more of us. But the intensity of the war has forced so many to flee. In the past two years there has been an exodus of journalists. There are more Somali reporters in Nairobi than Mogadishu. Needless to say, it’s too dangerous for foreign journalists to cover what is now one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Several foreign journalists have been kidnapped in Somalia in the last few years and two – a Canadian and an Australian journalist - are still in captivity.

Friends, if a journalist is killed the news is also killed. We need your support now more than ever. Please don’t forget us.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this award which I accept for all those who put their lives on the line for our profession everyday, and for those who have paid for the privilege of being a journalist with their own blood. Thank you.