Rageh Omaar was most recently BBC News' Africa correspondent, based in Johannesburg.
Previously he was Developing World Correspondent from 1998 and covered stories ranging from drought in Ethiopia to devastating floods in Mozambique.
Rageh began his journalistic career in 1990 as a trainee at The Voice newspaper in Brixton and then moved to City Limits magazine.
In 1991 he moved to Ethiopia where he freelanced as a foreign correspondent, much of his work being broadcast by BBC World Service.
In 1992, he returned to London as a producer for Focus on Africa for the World Service at Bush House.
Between 1994 and 1996, he worked as a broadcast journalist for the World Service and then became a producer and reporter for Newshour.
In September 1996 he undertook a three-month sabbatical at the University of Jordan, where he studied Arabic.
He was appointed Amman correspondent in March 1997.
Rageh Omaar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia on 19 July 1967. He is the youngest of four children.
Educated at Cheltenham Boys College, he went on to Oxford University where he gained a BA Honours in Modern History in 1990.