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Shock at murder of BBC journo
10/02/2005 11:38 - (SA)
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| This file picture shows Kate Peyton, 39, a BBC producer who was shot and killed in Mogadishu. |
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Nairobi - Britain, Somali officials and a press freedom watchdog expressed shock and indignation on Thursday at the fatal shooting of a British journalist in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday.
Kate Peyton, a 39-year-old BBC producer, died while undergoing surgery at Mogadishu's Medina hospital after she was gunned down by unknown attackers outside a hotel, just hours after arriving in the bullet-scarred city.
Britain's Foreign Office said it was "shocked and saddened" by Peyton's death and offered condolences to her friends and family, noting that she had travelled often with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
"She will be greatly missed," a Foreign Office spokesperson told Britain's domestic news agency, the Press Association.
Peyton was in Mogadishu to join foreign reporters covering a fact-finding visit to the capital by a team of Somali lawmakers assessing conditions there for the relocation from exile in Kenya of the nation's transitional government.
Reprehensible attack
Transitional Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi, who has announced the government would begin to relocate to Somalia on February 21, described the killing as a "savage act."
"I was saddened by the killing of the innocent journalist," he said by telephone from Nairobi. "Those behind the killing will be punished. Local authorities are instructed to investigate the matter."
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned what it termed a "reprehensible attack" and called on the transitional government to fully investigate the killing and prosecute the perpetrators.
"We mourn the loss of our colleague Kate Peyton and condemn this reprehensible attack on an innocent person who was trying to report on an important international issue," it said in a statement received here.
"We call on authorities and the newly elected federal government to ensure that Peyton's killers are swiftly found and brought to justice," CPJ's Executive Director Ann Cooper said.
Witnesses said the gunmen, who sped off in a white car, targeted her about 20m from the Sahafi (Arabic for journalist) Hotel in southern Mogadishu.
BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said he was "profoundly shocked and saddened" by the death of Peyton. Peyton, who was raised in Africa, had worked for the broadcaster as a producer and reporter since 1993 and had been based in Johannesburg for a number of years, according to the BBC.
"Kate was one of our most experienced and respected foreign affairs producers who had worked all over Africa and all over the world," said BBC Director of News, Helen Boaden.
Somalia, a country of about 10 million people, has been a theatre of anarchic bloodletting since strongman Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, plunging it into a patchwork of fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords.
Between 1993 and 1998, 10 journalists were killed in Somalia, either by mob attacks, shootings or knifings.
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