Incident

Top Somali journalist among Mogadishu bomb victims

Cause of death

Explosion

Details

Mohamed Dubad Gajow was one of at least 26 people who died on December 22, 2018, in twin bomb attacks in Mogadishu, according to media reports. Mohamed was a bodyguard with the privately owned Universal TV and he died alongside three of his colleagues—another bodyguard, a driver, and a journalist—according to media reports and a statement from UNESCO.

Mohamed and his colleagues died at the scene of the first attack, according to a journalist familiar with the case who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists on the condition that he not be named for fear of retaliation.

Mohamed, his fellow bodyguard Ibrahim Mohayadin Ahmed, and driver Abdiqadir Hassan Yusuf, had been assigned to work with Universal TV political show host and news anchor Awil Dahir Salad, who frequently traveled with bodyguards out of concern that his high-profile job put him at risk of attack, according to the same journalist.

The four Universal TV employees were driving through a military checkpoint near the presidential palace in Mogadishu when the first car bomb went off, according to a statement from the government-recognized National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) and the journalist familiar with the case. They were in an unmarked company car, headed to the Universal TV studios, which are about 300 meters away from the checkpoint, according to the journalist. A second car bomb went off near the first attack shortly afterwards, according to media reports.

The Associated Press reported that the militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for both attacks, which “appeared to target people heading to work on what was a business day” in Mogadishu.