Somali diplomat who forgave his daughter’s killer 22 years later

Ambassador Mohammed Ali Nur. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • The amiable and mild-mannered diplomat carried the grief of his baby daughter’s death all these years.
  • Mr Mohammed believes he has taken a bold step at healing and finding closure.

In Somalia, the stories that matter are those about normalisation.

For a conflict-weary nation, it is the simple human stories about the tiny tentative steps, promising a return to normalcy, that inspire people and generate mass interest.

And guess the two most popular stories that have dominated news inside Somalia in the last one month?

Certainly, not the killing of the terrorist leader, Ahmed Godane, or the takeover of the coastal town of Barawe from Al-Shabaab by Amisom, though many would admit they are of huge importance for the stability of the country.

The two most popular stories have been the launch of the first ATM in Mogadishu and the story of the Somali diplomat who met his daughter’s killer some 22 years later and forgave him.

The ATM story gained huge traction with the public because it primarily symbolised a return to normalcy.

Police had a tough time controlling a large animated crowd that had gathered at the hotel where Somalia’s first ATM began dispensing cash dollar bills to a select group of customers last week.

The other big story was triggered by a tweet from Ambassador Mohammed Ali Nur, the Somali ambassador to Kenya, some two weeks ago, in which he recounted how he had forgiven the ex-militiaman who was part of a gang that attacked his family and killed his baby daughter 22 years ago in Mogadishu.

For many Somalis, his moving account and the long journey to put closure to a painful episode in his life struck a deep cord with his compatriots, because, many, like him, are desperate to move on and “to become normal again”.

“I feel a sense of great relief in taking the step to forgive. I feel a huge burden has been lifted off my chest. It was the right thing to do for my sake and for that of my family,” the envoy told the Sunday Nation in an interview in Nairobi.

The amiable and mild-mannered diplomat, who has served as his country’s top diplomat to Kenya and the East African Community since 2007, carried the grief of his baby daughter’s death all these years.

He kept that part of his life away from prying eyes. Only a handful of his closest friends and family knew the full extent of the grief which, as he admits, “ate away at my inner core”.

As a diplomat and a representative of a country just emerging from two decades of civil conflict, Mr Mohamed had to put on a stoical face, aware he had to put his sense of grief and personal loss in the wider context of the collective national tragedy that has befallen his homeland.

“Every family has a story of loss and tragedy to tell and mine was not any different. Until now, I felt no need to talk about issues I deemed deeply personal and private,” he says.

It was in 1992, shortly after the fall of the Siad Barre regime and much of the country and the city of Mogadishu had been carved up into personal fiefdoms by warlords.

Mr Mohammed’s father Ali Nur, popularly nicknamed “Ali Americo”, was a well-known wealthy businessman who owned a chain of businesses, especially in real estate.

The young Mohammed was a manager of the family business in 1992 and because his father was old and frail, he was taking on ever more greater responsibility.

DEATH IN THE FAMILY

One morning he did what was routine — he jumped into his red Toyota car to make a quick inspection tour of some retail outlets owned by his father.

As he was driving, he remembers hearing sporadic gunfire and blasts in the direction of his home district of Abdiasis.

“I did not make much of it at first. You tend to hear these sorts of sounds in Mogadishu.”

But some doubt gnawed at him, forcing him to quickly turn back.

He noticed a huge crowd around his father’s residence in Abdiasis. When he asked what was going, he got a rude shock.

He was informed a group of gunmen had attacked the compound with hand grenades and small arms, before stripping all rooms bare of anything valuable.

But the sight that soon greeted him was to leave an indelible tragic mark on his life.

“I saw my father carrying the limp and blood-stained body of my baby daughter, his face contorted with anguish,” Mr Mohammed recalls.

“My father’s voice choked with emotion as he said: ‘Son, Yasmin is no more, May God bless her pure soul and grant us fortitude’.”

The toddler died of wounds caused by shrapnel after a grenade hurled over the perimeter fence landed on the courtyard where she was playing with her toys.

“It hit me hard; she was my only baby girl and I was deeply attached to her. I sobbed uncontrollably and was for hours dazed,” he says.

The death of Yasmin, then 14 months old, he says, forced him to realise the grave danger to his young family.

“I decided to leave the city and find a secure place for my then two sons — Jibril and Ahmed.”

His father was at first reluctant to leave, partly because he felt his life-long business investments would go to waste and also because “he was a proud man who felt he could not be run out of town by moryan (outlaws)”.

“It took me two days to persuade him,” he remembers.

MEETING THE KILLER

The family first settled in Mombasa before later leaving for Canada.

“I am deeply indebted to Kenya and Canada for offering shelter to my family,” he says.

But despite the passage of so many years, the trauma of loss stayed with the family.

“My wife was deeply traumatised and remained inconsolable for many years,” says Mr Mohammed.

So how did he meet the man who confessed to be part of the gang that attacked the compound and killed his daughter?

Mr Mohammed says he was out with friends in early September during a trip to Mogadishu.

They were seated on the terrace of a hotel overlooking Lido Beach when a man came up to him and made the stunning revelation.

The man said he was among the militiamen who attacked his father’s house and killed his daughter in 1992.

He claimed he had been deported from Saudi Arabia. He went on to say that he and his mates have been dogged by a string of misfortunes, and that most of them were either dead or in jail.

The man said he was remorseful and had been counselled by clan elders to seek forgiveness.

“He fell on his knees and touched my beard (a traditional Somali custom to seek forgiveness). I was at first angry, but I calmed down.

“I told him — you are forgiven”.

Mr Mohammed believes with those three words he has taken a bold step at healing and finding closure to a deep psychological pain that has dogged him and his family for over two decades.

Many in Somalia have since praised the envoy and believe this form of restorative justice may serve as a model to reconcile communities and restore stability to the country.