VOA will launch a daily radio broadcast in the Somali language to the Horn of Africa.
It starts Feb. 12. The organization, which broadcast in Somali in the early 1990s, said a group of Somali broadcasters at its headquarters in Washington will work with freelance reporters in Africa and elsewhere to provide Somali speakers with news and information.
The half-hour VOA program will air seven days a week. The service is funded by a grant from the Department of State and supplements VOA broadcasts to the Horn in Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna.
The broadcast will air on AM, FM and shortwave radio at 1600 UTC and repeat at 1700 UTC. Frequencies for the first broadcast are 13580, 15620 and 1431 kHz, and for the second 13580 and 15620 kHz.
The second broadcast will also air on HornAfrik, a VOA-affiliated FM station, and the programs will be available live and on the service’s Web site.
