Friends and family came together to perform janazah or funeral prayer and bid farewell to Mohammed Yahia, a prominent Muslim science journalist who passed away last Friday.

Yahia died on his way to Washington DC, as he was travelling to assume his new role as editor-in-chief of C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News).

His remains returned to Cairo on Friday as janaza prayer was performed and his body laid to rest after Jumu’ah prayer.

Yahia started his career as young promising science journalist at the IOL English website and later moved to SciDev.Net where he worked as its Middle East and North Africa regional coordinator.

At SciDev, he wrote for several different publications around the world, including Nature, IDRC, CancerWorld, The Daily Star Egypt and SNF’s Horizons.

Yaiya later moved to work as the executive editor of Nature Portfolio in the Middle East, which is part of Springer Nature.

Muhammed Yaiya also served as president of the World Federation of Science Journalists from 2017-2019.