Kassim Kayira presents BBC Swahili’s popular weekday TV programme, Dira Ya Dunia and Focus on Africa on
radio. Kassim also provides analysis on events in the Great Lakes region of
Africa. He was born in Uganda and grew up in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, and
went on to study in both his home country as well as Kenya. He speaks
twelve languages spanning five countries in East Africa’s Great Lakes region.
Kassim is an accomplished journalist who joined the BBC in 2005 having
previously worked in television news in Rwanda (Rwanda Television, TVR) where
his work included covering ‘Africa‘s World War’ in Congo. Kassim reports on
world events and has reported directly from conflict zones in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Mali, Niger and South Sudan. In
such coverage, Kassim has tackled different subjects including aid, peace
processes, post-conflict justice, reconstruction, refugees and displacement
among others