U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar’s father Nur Omar Mohamed died on Monday night of complications from the COVID-19.
“It is with tremendous sadness and pain to say goodbye to my father,” the Somalia-born Minnesota congresswoman tweeted late on Monday.
“No words can describe what he meant to me and all who knew and loved him,” she said.
Nur Omar Mohamed, an ethnic Somali from the Majeerteen clan of Northeastern Somalia, worked as a teacher trainer.
Ilhan and her father came to the United States as refugees in 1995 from Somalia during the country’s civil war and eventually settled in Minneapolis.
Ilhan is the first Somali-American, the first naturalized citizen from Africa, and the first woman of color to hold elective office from Minnesota. She is also one of the first two Muslim women (along with Rashida Tlaib) to serve in Congress.
