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On red alert

Aiden Hartley

Wednesday, 18th June 2008

Aidan Hartley on the Wild Life

After being blown up by a roadside bomb in Mogadishu I am lucky to be alive, but back in Somalia this is now the worst time ever to be a journalist. The most recent loss was the BBC Somali stringer Nasteh Dahir Farah, murdered a few days ago in the country’s city of Kismayu. Dozens of other Somali journalists have been killed, maimed or imprisoned in recent years. Among the international press corps, the death toll in Somalia since the 1990s is shocking — Kate Peyton, Martin Adler, Ilaria Alpi and my close personal friends Dan Eldon, Hos Maina and Anthony Macharia, to name but a few. I hope at least the families of the fallen journalists from Somalia will see something positive in the unveiling of a public monument, but we should remember some reporters are still dying in a war partly financed by this British government.

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David Short

June 20th, 2008 6:03am

I see the Spectator has got my friend Aidan's name spelled wrongly again!

How can you guys spell it as 'Aiden' on one line and then 'Aidan' a mere centimetre below on the same screen?

Get a grip.

M Golf

June 20th, 2008 7:17am

Let another thing be known about what Britain is doing in Africa:
Those white Africans, British descendents who still live in Kenya, and who until recently used to be able to get a stamp on their Kenyan passports proving their right of abode in the UK are now denied it. They need a visa to enter Britain and this is now in the hand of an agent, not the High Commission. If the visa is denied, as it is happening, they cannot go back. There, British citizens not allowed in Britain for being white, and Somali warlords welcome. Thank the Left for it which has ran the FCO for the past decade.