Samia Yusuf Omar

Samia Yusuf Omar or Samiyo Omar (Saamiya Yuusuf Cumar; سامية يوسف عمر; 25 March 1991 – April 2012) was a sprinter from Somalia.

Samia Yusuf Omar was born in Somalia on 25 March 1991, to Omar Yusuf and Dahabo Ali and was the oldest of six children.

Her mother was an athlete who competed at a national level within Somalia.

The family came from one of the country's minority ethnic groups.

Both Omar's father and uncle were killed following a mortar attack on Bakaara Market.

Omar was in the eighth grade at the time, and she dropped out of school in response to look after her siblings while her mother sold produce to provide for the family.

Following the encouragement of her mother, she decided to take up running.

She would train at Mogadishu Stadium, as the family lived nearby in a hovel.

The stadium had a gravel running track, pitted with mortar craters from the ongoing Somali Civil War.

When not running at the stadium, she would run on the streets of Mogadishu, facing harassment from local militants who did not believe that Muslim women should participate in sporting activities.

She was one of two Somali athletes who competed for their nation at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

Omar had grown up in Mogadishu, and trained there during the Somali Civil War despite receiving harassment from local militia groups.

Her story at the Olympics was covered by the media, and her performance was well received by the crowd.

Following the Games, she hid away from athletics following threats by militant group Al-Shabaab.

In April 2008, at the 2008 African Championships in Athletics in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, she finished last in her heat.

Omar was selected by the Somali Olympic Committee to compete in the 200 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, between 8 and 24 August 2008.

She said the call-up was unexpected, both because of her young age at the time, and because she was from a minority ethnic group.

Because of a lack of funding, Omar competed in equipment donated by the Sudanese team, lining up in a heat which included eventual gold medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown from Jamaica.

Omar finished some nine seconds adrift of the other runners, with a time of 32.16.

The crowd in the stadium gave a huge level of support to Omar, with journalist Charles Robinson saying "I literally got goosebumps. They were just sort of pushing her."

and The Guardian suggesting that she received a louder cheer than Campbell-Brown.

The story of the Somali girl was picked up by the media prior to the race, but afterwards the interest died down due to the language barrier between Omar and the interviewers and because of her lack of interest in publicising herself.

Her competition at the Olympics received little coverage in Somalia.

Her heat took place at midnight in the East Africa Time zone, and no television or radio broadcasts of it were made locally.

As such, none of her family had seen her compete.

After a confrontation with the militant group Al-Shabaab, she was left shaken and no longer admitted to others that she was an athlete.

By December 2009, she and her family were living in a displacement camp organised by the Islamic insurgent group Hizbul-Islam, located about 20 km outside Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab had banned all women from participating in or watching sports.

In 2011, Omar fled the fighting of the civil war and moved to Addis Abeba, leaving her family behind, partly to pursue her dream of competing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom.

Now a middle-distance athlete, she was due to begin training with former Olympian Eshetu Tura, who was recommended to her by the prominent Qatar-based Somali track coach Jama Aden and the Olympic medalist Mohamed Suleiman.

She was allowed to train with the middle distance Ethiopian team once approval from the Ethiopian Olympic Committee was received.

Her personal best time when first meeting with the Ethiopian team was 5 minutes for the 1500 metres; it was made clear that she would need to meet 4:20 to be competitive.

She built up a friendship with Al Jazeera journalist Teresa Krug, who covered her story both at the Olympics and afterwards.

Krug later reported that in a desire to find a coach, Omar travelled north towards Europe, crossing the Sudans and entering Libya.

Both Omar's family and Krug attempted to talk her out of it, and to remain in Ethiopia where the Somali Olympic Committee were hoping to set up a training camp.

Instead, she had paid people smugglers to take her to Libya, where she was imprisoned for a period.

She ended up in a Hizbul-Islam displacement camp, and in pursuit of competing at the 2012 Summer Olympics, she crossed the border to Ethiopia looking for a safe place to train.

She was trafficked north into Libya, where she was imprisoned.

During the 2012 Games, it was revealed that Omar had drowned off the coast of Libya while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy.

On 19 August 2012, the Corriere della Sera reported that Samia had died while on her way to Italy on a boat from Libya.