Hodan Nalayeh, a Somali-Canadian journalist who once resided in Vaughan, Ont., was killed in an attack on a hotel in Kismayo, Somalia on Friday.
Global Affairs Canada has yet to confirm Nalayeh’s death. CBC journalist Nazim Baksh says he got to know Nalayeh during Storytelling Somalia, a United Nations Alliance of Civilizations-sponsored workshop. Held in 2014, it was designed to build capacity among Somalis in the diaspora. At that time, Nalayeh had just launched her weekly television show Integration TV in Toronto on OMNI TV.
“Hodan was always keen to showcase the best aspects of her community, whether in the diaspora or back in Somalia, but she would never shy away from tackling controversial topics that made many in her community uneasy,” Bask told CBC News.
“Hodan was an amazing journalist who was never afraid to ask the tough questions and she often did it with style and a smile.”
In recent years, she travelled to remote areas in Somalia to see how drought is affecting people there and to raise awareness of the situation.
