Somalia welcomed newly elected American legislator Ilhan Omar home to Mogadishu on Monday, where she met with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
The Somali American left as a child and lived for years in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya before moving to the United States in 1997.
She is the first Somali-American woman to become a lawmaker in the U.S., where she is serving as a Minnesota state representative for the third time.
Omar lives in the city of Minneapolis, which is home to the greatest concentration of Somali immigrants in the United States.
Minneapolis-St. Paul also has a large Oromo population, among significant communities coming from Ethiopia, Kenya and other nations. Omar, serving as Director of Policy Initiatives at Women Organizing Women, has a long history of public service and other achievements within the community.
