Somali-Canadian journalist among 26 dead in terror attack

Hodan Nalayeh spent the last days of her life doing what she loved most: sharing a side of Somalia rarely depicted in the West. On Twitter, she posted photos of boys grinning on the island of Ilisi, fresh fish and lobsters pulled straight from the Indian Ocean, and a colorful sunset from the port city of Kismayo.

“It was an incredible day to witness #Somalia’s beauty,” the Somali-Canadian journalist wrote.

Then, on Friday, al-Shabab militants stormed the Asasey Hotel in Kismayo, killing at least 26 people, including Nalayeh, 43, and her husband, Farid Jama Suleiman. Another 56 people were wounded. It took around 14 hours for Somali security forces to regain control of the hotel, where several tribal elders and another journalist, Mohamed Sahal Omar, were also killed. At least one American was also among the dead, the State Department confirmed.

Nalayeh’s death came as a particular shock to the Somali diaspora, where the YouTube star was seen as a relentless optimist — someone who found a way to always see the best of humanity in a country where so many others seemed to only see the worst.

Raised in Canada, Nalayeh founded Integration TV, an English-language channel that shared positive stories from Somalia and the diaspora. The mother of two recently moved back to Somalia to highlight the people and stories so often overlooked in other news outlets after decades of war: men and women breaking ground on a new library, female business owners selling clothes in a marketplace, camel herders sharing fresh milk with her family.

The genre of stories she was committed to telling could be summed up by one of her preferred hashtags: #SomaliPositivity. And her stories found a wide audience, particularly on YouTube, where she had more than 60,000 followers. In comments, viewers would often refer to her as a “role model.”

“Good job to this strong amazing Somali queen,” one wrote on a video published two weeks ago.

After her death Friday, messages of grief flooded social media. Ibrahim never met Nalayeh face-to-face, but he valued her work so much that he said it felt like he had “lost a family member,” he said.