Rageh Omaar: Somali-born Oxford-educated migrant hailed as the 'Scud Stud' for his coverage of Iraq war who married a baronet's daughter

ITV News presenter Rageh Omaar had to receive medical care last night after he became 'unwell' and stumbled over his words while live on air.

Somali-born British journalist Mr Omaar, 56, who was educated at Oxford University, made his name as the 'Scud Stud' for his widely hailed coverage of the Iraq War as BBC world affairs correspondent.

Mr Omaar is married to Georgiana Rose 'Nina' Montgomery-Cuninghame, the daughter of Sir John Montgomery-Cuninghame of Corsehill, the baronet - an aristocratic title below baron - of Cuninghame of Corsehill.

The couple share three children, Loula, Sami and Zachary and were last known to be living in Chiswick, west London.

One of five children, Mr Omaar was born on July 19, 1967 in Mogadishu, Somalia to mother Sahra and father Abdullahi Omaar, a businessman.

His father became an accountant before setting up several businesses in Somalia. Speaking to the Guardian in 2017, he said he had a contract with Massey Ferguson tractors, introduced Coca-Cola to the country and also started Somalia's first independent newspaper.

The journalist arrived in London UK at the age of six in 1974, where he was educated at the Dragon School, a private prep school in Oxford, before being enrolled in top public school Cheltenham College.

He then went on to study a degree in Modern History at New College, Oxford.

Mr Omaar said that although his father founded a newspaper, he did not want his son to become a journalist as he did see it as a 'serious profession' and said he should study law.

But undeterred, the international journalist started his career in journalism working as a trainee for The Voice newspaper, before getting a job with the BBC, working in Ethiopia in East Africa.

He then came back to London a year later after getting a job as a producer and broadcast journalist for the corporation.

Mr Omaar rose to global prominence through his work as a foreign correspondent for the BBC during the invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad in 2003, and his work was widely syndicated across the US, earning him the moniker 'Scud Stud'.

He won numerous awards for his exceptional work during this time, including a Peabody Award for his reports for the BBC from Sudan and a BAFTA for the BBC's coverage of the invasion of Afghanistan in which he was the only western TV journalist to report from inside Taliban-held Kabul.

Mr Omaar won an Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy award for the best TV journalist in 2003. He then won the Arab Media Watch Award for excellence in journalism in 2008.

In 2014 and 2015, the journalist was nominated for the Services to Media award at the British Muslim Awards.

After this he worked at Al Jazeera International from 2006 to 2010, where he presented the nightly weekday documentary series Witness, serving as a Middle Eastern correspondent for its London Division.

He joined ITV News as a special correspondent and presenter in January 2013, reporting on a broad range of news stories, as well as producing special in-depth reports from all around the UK and abroad.

Mr Omaar was then promoted to International Affairs Editor for ITV News in 2014.

Since 2017, he has infrequently presented the ITV Lunchtime and Evening News programmes.

After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the distinguished journalist was also chosen by ITV to cover her funeral on September 19, 2022.

Just this month the father-of-three found himself in hot water with some football fans over comments he made about the Premier League title race.

A self-professed Arsenal fan, Mr Omaar hilariously said: 'To sport now and the tussle for the Premier League title is still as close as anything after Liverpool returned to the top of the table.

'They beat bottom club Sheffield United 3-1. Alexis Mac Allister got the goal that turned the game, so Liverpool are, regrettably, two points clear of Arsenal.'