The Somali TV journalist who fled terrorists for refuge in Dublin

Salman Jamal Said will never forget what happened on 26 July 2015.

The award-winning Somali TV reporter was in a car with three colleagues, travelling on the main road from the TV station where they worked in central Mogadishu to the Somali capital’s Aden Adde International Airport, when another car crashed into them.

The collision was a deliberate, targeted attack by a suicide bomber that blew up both cars.

The driver was a member of al-Shabab, an Islamist militant group, which controls many villages and territories in Somalia, including some areas and roads around Mogadishu.

The group, described by the US government as “one of al-Qa’ida’s most dangerous affiliates” seeks to impose a strict version of Sharia law and regularly attacks military, civilians, and government officials.

Two of Mr Said’s colleagues were killed instantly and he was left with horrific burns and life-changing injuries.

“It is so difficult to be a journalist in Somalia. Somali journalists face many difficult situations – injuries, assassinations, suicide bomb attacks,” Mr Said, told Prime Time.

“I lost my eye. It was hard for me but what happened to my colleagues was worse. I lost two of my best friends in that suicide attack,” Mr Said said.

Mr Said’s facial injuries were so serious that he was flown to Istanbul for specialised surgery. He ended up staying in Turkey for seven years.

After receiving multiple surgeries in Istanbul, Mr Said returned to his native Somalia in 2022.

Mr Said decided to leave journalism to become a senior media adviser to the Speaker of the Somali parliament.

After he started to appear on TV beside his new boss in that new role, Mr Said came to the attention of the al-Shabab group once more.

The Islamist militant group started to send him messages telling him that his life was still in danger. Mr Said told Prime Time the group attempted to attack him again last year.

Last November, he decided to flee Somalia, leaving his family, his career and the life he had built for 39 years.

According to the Department of Justice, Mr Said is one of 3,627 Somalis who have arrived in Ireland seeking asylum in the last four years.

In 2021, there were 334 Somali International Protection Applicants. That number rose to over 1,500 the following year.

From January to 7 July, 685 Somalis arrived in Ireland seeking International Protection.

Mr Said told Prime Time that many of the people arriving at Dublin Airport with false documents are fleeing terrorist groups and death threats and are forced into such situations.

People smugglers

Mr Said told Prime Time he paid a people smuggler $4,000 (US) to get him safely out of Somalia.

After paying the smuggler, he said he was given a passport with a picture of a person that looked like him.

The smuggler accompanied him on the flight from Mogadishu to Istanbul in late November. The next day they flew to Dublin.

When they arrived at Dublin Airport, Mr Said said he gave the passport back to the smuggler, who would then reuse it for someone else.

People like Mr Said trust international smuggling gangs with their lives. Europol estimated in 2016 that more than 90% of irregular migrants who reach the EU, use smuggling networks at some point in their journey, which are mostly organised in criminal groups.

Smuggling networks make massive profits from their criminal activities. Although data is scarce, the UN Office for Drugs and Crime estimates that two of the principal smuggling routes – leading from East, North and West Africa to Europe and from South America to North America – generate about $6.75 billion a year for criminals.

The International Organisation for Migration estimates that migrant smugglers’ activities, especially at sea, have resulted in the death of over 28,000 migrants since 2014.

When Mr Said arrived in Dublin airport, the smuggler left him. Mr Said made his way from the airport to the International Protection Office on Mount Street near Dublin city centre.

Life in Dublin

From there he was moved to the reception centre for International Protection applicants in the Convention Centre at the Citywest Hotel complex in Saggart, Co Dublin.

Mr Said recalls his first night in Citywest last November: “It was hard when I arrived on that first night…I shared a room with people from different nationalities – Nigeria, Pakistan, and other countries in Europe. Life is difficult as you have no privacy like you would have at home.”

Mr Said was familiar to other Somali nationals in the refugee centre; they knew him from television.

“They recognised me and they came over to me and asked what I was doing here? They said ‘you are a journalist. You’re a famous person.’ What are you doing here?”

“I told them that everybody has to try and survive and save his life.”

Mr Said says that there is a strong sense of community among the Somali community in Dublin and they have helped him out since he arrived.

Food and accommodation are provided for him in Direct Provision and he also gets a weekly allowance of €38.80 per week. He saves most of that money and sends it home once a month to help support his wife and three kids in Mogadishu, over 7,000 kilometres away.

He says he stays in contact with them through regular Whatsapp video calls.

When he first arrived, Mr Said was not allowed to work, as he did not have a work permit.

He whiled the days away by going to Tallaght Library and the Central Library in the city centre. He also plays a weekly game of football with other Somalis and meets up with them for coffee as well.

International Protection applicants can apply for permission to work if they have not received a decision on their application in five months.

Here for over seven months now, Mr Said successfully got a work permit in the last few weeks, and he is currently doing job interviews.

Many of his Somali friends work as security guards and he is hoping to get work in that area and become financially independent.

“They work in shops, mall and hotels as security guards. They earn money and they pay the taxes of the government. They are taxpayers now,” said Mr Said.

His compatriots generally move into shared rental accommodation, once they have found work.

On 20 June, Mr Said was moved from the Citywest centre to the refugee centre in Ballyogan, near Carrickmines in south Dublin. He hopes that he will be find work soon and start to rebuild a new life.

Nine years on from the suicide bomb that killed two of his friends and left him with life-changing injuries, Mr Said is still haunted by that 2015 attack.

He told Prime Time he gets flashbacks. The noise of a door slamming in the accommodation centre can startle him and bring him back to that horrendous day in 2015.

It’s a day in his past that he’ll never forget but Mr Said hopes that he can build a new future 7,000 kilometres away from home in Ireland.

Watch the full report from reporter Conor McMorrow and producer Aaron Heffernan on the 11 July edition of Prime Time on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.