Journalist's killing widely condemned

The killing of an international journalist by unidentified gunmen in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, was widely condemned on Thursday. It also raised doubts about the safety of the city at a time when the new government is preparing to return there, observers said. Kate Peyton, 39, who was working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was shot on Wednesday in front of her hotel as she was getting into a car. She was rushed to a local hospital and died there later, a local journalist who was at the scene at the time told IRIN. "I don't want to speculate about who killed Kate Peyton, but there are certainly groups who have an interest in painting Mogadishu as a dangerous and unstable city," the director of the International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa Project, Matt Bryden, told IRIN. "The tragic killing of the BBC journalist, whoever is responsible, plays into the hands of those who want to portray Mogadishu as being unsafe as a seat of government and to justify military intervention," Bryden added. Somalia's new transitional federal government (TFG) had announced on Tuesday that it planned to start relocating from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to Mogadishu on 21 February, and had urged donors to fund the relocation. The Somali parliament, also temporarily based in Nairobi, has deployed a team to Somalia to assess the security situation ahead of the proposed move. "The key choice for the government now is whether to confront the security risks involved in moving back to Mogadishu or the political risks implied by adopting an interim seat of government somewhere else - such as Baidoa," Bryden said. Peyton's killing has been widely condemned. "The UN deplores this senseless killing of an innocent journalist who was interested in improving the image of the country before the international community," the acting representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, Babafemi Badejo, told IRIN. "It is unfortunate this killing took place at this time when the TFG is galvanizing the international community on its desire to relocate." The UN-appointed independent expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, said in a statement on Thursday that "such attacks on media outlets constitute a serious violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". "A free and independent press which does not fear any party is a main pillar of any political settlement," he said. A veteran journalist, Peyton had worked for the BBC since 1993. She was widely travelled on the African continent. According to the BBC, Peyton had arrived in Mogadishu just hours before her killing. "An occupant in a car driving-by opened fire, shooting [her]," the journalist who witnessed the incident said. He added that Peyton underwent surgery at the nearby Medina hospital. "She was hit by [a] single shot in the lower back area and [the bullet] lodged in her stomach," Dr Abdi Ibrahim Jiya, who operated on Peyton, told IRIN. "We succeeded in removing the bullet, which was from a pistol, but by the time she was brought to hospital, Kate had lost a lot of blood." She died four hours after she was operated on, Ibrahim said. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was deeply saddened by Peyton's death. CPJ executive director, Ann Cooper, said in a statement: "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. We call on authorities and the newly elected federal government to ensure that Peyton's killers are swiftly found and brought to justice."