Qamar was born on 19 September 1957 in a small village outside of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. She was the third of 11 children. Qamar spent her childhood in Mogadishu, where she also went to school and graduated from college. She subsequently moved abroad to East Germany to study political science, and later studied law in England. She eventually passed the bar as a lawyer and became a British citizen. In the mid-1990s, Qamar returned to her native Somalia, where she later joined the nation's Transitional Federal Government. From 2007 until her death, she served as the national Minister of Health.[1]
Qamar spoke to her brother, Mohamed Aden Ali, several hours before the attack. She had been attempting to convince him to return to Somalia for the new doctors programme. Following her death, he decided to continue Qamar's plans, saying "The legacy of my sister will go on, we will not stop. Let them know: The people of Somalia, they are ready to die, they are courageous people. We will never stop to give service to our people."[5]
Legacy
There is a school named in her honour and this was to be renovated in 2018 as announced by the Somali Minister Deqa Yasin in November 2018.[6]
