MOGADISHU, June 23: A gunman shot dead a Swedish cameraman covering a pro-Islamist rally on Friday in Mogadishu, just weeks after its new rulers said they had pacified one of the world’s most lawless cities after 15 years of anarchy.
He was filming a protest led by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which took the city from US-backed warlords on June 5 and seized a strategic swathe of the Horn of Africa country.
Witnesses said he was filming at the front of a crowd of thousands. “A gun went off, he went down, that was it,” Guardian correspondent Xan Rice, who was present, said.
“There was mass confusion. We were shunted to the side, and the rally was called off.” After the lone shot, the crowd fled from the body, leaving sandals strewn on the sand.
The Swedish foreign ministry named the victim as Martin Adler.
“His family has been informed,” spokeswoman Nina Ersman said. “He was a very well renowned cameraman and journalist.”
Martin Adler, who covered more than two dozen war zones in his career, was married with two daughters. Adler was of Anglo-Swedish origin. It was not clear who he was working for.
Abdirahim Isse, an aide to the courts’ leadership, said an unarmed woman who was close to the victim and ran away had been arrested for questioning. But he said the investigation was still underway.
“The man was in a vehicle and came out to take video shots of some angry youths who were burning US and Ethiopian flags ... it was a single shot and within a second he was down,” another witness said.—Reuters
