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Reporter's Notebook: Journalist Remembers Horror of Somalia Hotel Attack

Mohamed Olad Hassan

   WASHINGTON - Ten years ago on December 3, 2009, a suicide bomber
   attacked a graduation ceremony at the Shamo Hotel, one of Mogadishu's
   main hotels. Fourteen medical students, lecturers, and doctors from
   Banadir University were among 30 people who were killed. More than 50
   others were injured.

   Among the survivors was Mohamed Olad Hassan, now a senior editor and
   writer with the VOA Somali service. Before joining VOA in November
   2010, he was a Mogadishu-based correspondent for, among others, the
   Associated Press and the BBC World Service. Olad narrowly escaped death
   and he recounts his experience covering that deadly ceremony a decade
   ago.

   I still remember that day as if it happened just days ago. Dozens of
   young graduating students, government ministers, proud parents, and
   doctors crammed inside a tent, which was shaped as a meeting hall at
   the hotel.

   The students were all dressed in colorful uniforms for their graduation
   and the walls of the hall had been brightly decorated.

   Such ceremonies rarely happened in Mogadishu at the time because of
   insecurity and lawlessness in the capital. The chances to attain
   academic credentials were very limited, making this particular ceremony
   a trace of hope.

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