Channel News Asia
Sunday, September 04, 2011
The body of Noramfaizul Mohamad Nor, 39, who worked as a television cameraman for the national news agency Bernama, arrived home Sunday on board a Malaysian military aircraft from the Somali capital.
Najib cut short a visit to Australia to be present at the Subang military airbase on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur to receive his body, along with senior ministers and family members.
"I regard Noramfaizul as a national hero whose good deed should inspire us to continue helping the less fortunate," the premier told reporters at the funeral ceremony held at the airbase's mosque.
Noramfaizul was killed and a cameraman from the private news channel TV-3 was wounded on Friday after a fire fight broke out between African Union troops and local militiamen in Mogadishu.
The journalists were travelling with a convoy of humanitarian workers from the Malaysian aid agency Putera 1Malaysia Club. Noramfaizul is believed to be the first Malaysian journalist killed abroad while on assignment.
Noramfaizul was hit by a stray bullet while travelling in a car, Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, the aid agency's president, was quoted as saying by the New Sunday Times newspaper.
"The bullet pierced (his) right shoulder and exited from the left. It could have been any one of us."
He was buried later Sunday at his home suburb south of Kuala Lumpur.
Somalia is the country worst affected by the Horn of Africa's most serious drought in decades, with nearly half its 10 million people in need of humanitarian aid, and several areas declared by the UN to be in famine.
Clashes between rival militia groups happen regularly in Mogadishu, a city that has been battered by a bloody insurgency as Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab rebels fight to unseat the Western-backed government.
Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rank Somalia as "Africa's deadliest country for media personnel", with 23 media workers killed since 2007.