Hodan Ali had just left the mayor’s office in Mogadishu to get some coffee and a bite to eat when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device.

Six people were killed in the July 24 blast in Somalia’s capital city, and Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman was critically wounded. He died in a Qatar hospital on Aug. 1.

The militant group al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack. The bomber is believed to be a woman who had been working on disability rights from the mayor’s office.

Ali, a Somali-Canadian nurse practitioner, left her family in the Ontario city of Hamilton three years ago and moved to Mogadishu in hopes of making a difference. She was both a friend and colleague of the mayor, advising him on issues of poverty and health care.

She spoke to As It Happens guest host Piya Chattopadhyay about the attack. Here is part of their conversation.
How did you learn about the attack?

I had just arrived at a place where I was having a coffee and some snacks … and a friend of mine who was sitting next to me just said, “The municipality has been bombed and the mayor is injured.”

I was like, “What? That’s not possible. I just came from there.”
How close of a call was this for you?

Extremely close. We had just spent the entire morning and early afternoon conducting a meeting with the new secretary general representative to Somalia, UNSOM [United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia].

After that meeting is when I had gone to the coffee shop I mentioned, and that’s where I learned of the tragedy.
What do you know about the alleged attacker?

She was, by all accounts, not a suspect to anyone. Blind young woman. Extremely articulate, intelligent young woman who was a passionate advocate for those disabled. And her office was next to mine.
She and I had engaged several times.
The mayor appointed her as a director for disability in the region. By all accounts, this was not someone that you ever expect to commit such atrocity. But, you know, that’s who is suspected to have carried out the attack.
Given what you’ve just said … why do you think she may have done this?
I don’t think there’s any way of comprehending. But from what I’ve seen, and what I do see, are youth who’ve been brainwashed into thinking what they’re doing is somehow religiously viable, and that they are killing in the name of Islam. But truly, it is the most un-Islamic act to take the life of an innocent human being.
There’s many layers to why young people join these extremist elements — in particular, post-conflict, very fragile, economically disadvantaged youth. Particularly, she’s of someone with disability. She probably faced a lot more challenges.