Rory Peck award-winning Anglo-Swedish journalist Martin Adler has been shot dead while covering a demonstration in the Somalian capital Mogadishu.
Adler, who often worked for Channel 4 News, was covering a demonstration organised by Islamists – who took over the city from warlords in June 5. Western journalists have only considered the city safe enough to visit since the Islamist take-over.
According to Channel 4, Adler was a "longtime friend" of the network and staff were said to be "deeply saddened" to hear of his death.
He won the 2004 Rory Peck Award for hard news for his documentary On Patrol with Charlie Company.
It was described by one of the judges as "the best embedded piece I have seen from Iraq. He shot it, voiced it, edited it: it genuinely was his creation. It spoke volumes about the situation in Iraq."
Adler was born in Stockholm of Anglo-Swedish parents, he worked in over a dozen war zones including: El Salvador, Peru, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Sierra leone, Liberia, Chechnya, Abchazia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Burundi, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Iraq.
In 2001, he won the Amnesty International Media Award for astory story on the kidnapping and sale of women in China. He lived in Sweden with his wife and two daughters.
This Reuters aerial picture accompanying this story apparently shows another journalist going to Adler's aid.
In February 2005, BBC journalist Kate Peyton was shot dead in Mogadishu.
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