Every time Mohamed Olad Hassan bids goodbye to his family of six it is with that same mixture of excitement and sadness felt by a soldier departing for the battlefield. Unlike members of the armed forces, the BBC World Service's man in Somalia carries only a pen and a notebook in his kitbag.
Hassan has survived bomb and mortar attacks, witnessed colleagues die, and seen mass deaths by suicide bombers; yet his determination to tell the world what is happening in the Horn of Africa continues strong. "If I run away, the criminals tormenting my countrymen will have triumphed. The world will not know the heinous crimes which are being committed," he says.
His quest for the truth in Somalia comes at great personal strain, he admits. The 33-year-old recalls how last year the militant Islamist al-Shabab rebel group ordered him to refer to them in his reports as "al-Shabab al-Mujahedeen". But "If I did this, it meant they were fighting a holy war [jihad] on behalf of the Somali people – which isn't true," he says. Hassan's impartial reporting from Somalia has now been recognised in his being awarded the Speaker Abbot Award for Bravery by the Parliamentary Press Gallery at Westminster.
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