Mali hotel attack: US aid worker Anita Datar confirmed dead after gunmen stormed Bamako Radisson

When she was in her early 20s, Anita Datar spent two years in Africa, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal.

She was on the continent again, this time in Mali, on Friday, when gunmen seized a luxury hotel and killed at least 20 people. Datar, a 41-year-old international development worker from Takoma Park, Maryland, is the only American known to have died in the attack. The US ambassador to Mali called her family late Friday afternoon to inform them, Datar’s mother, Sunanda Datar, said in a brief phone call.

"We are devastated that Anita is gone — it’s unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism," her brother Sanjeev Datar said in a statement on Friday night. "Anita was one of the kindest and most generous people we know. She loved her family and her work tremendously. Everything she did in her life she did to help others — as a mother, public health expert, daughter, sister and friend. And while we are angry and saddened that she has been killed, we know that she would want to promote education and healthcare to prevent violence and poverty at home and abroad, not intolerance."

Datar, the mother of an elementary-school-age son, was a senior manager at Palladium, an international development firm with offices in Washington. She was particularly interested in public health, family planning and HIV, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Her Facebook page is filled with pictures of her young son, Rohan, who is shown smiling on his bike, dressing up for Halloween and mugging for the camera with his arm around his mom. "Guess who wants to look at pictures of his first day of school," Datar wrote beneath a photo of Rohan dated 26 August 2013. “See . . . your mom is always right . . .”

Datar served as a founding board member of Tulalens, a nonprofit group aimed at helping poor women in Chennai, India, make informed choices about where to seek health care.

In a Twitter message, Secretary of State John Kerry referred specifically to her loss.

“We mourn American Anita Datar” and all those lost in the attack. “We extend condolences to family and friends and stand with the Malian people.”

She was a 1991 graduate of Mount Olive High School in Flanders, New Jersey, said Tara Elms Henderson, a high school classmate. She went on to Rutgers for her undergraduate degree and then attended Columbia University for a master’s in public health and a master’s in public administration.

Henderson knew from Facebook that her old friend had gone to Africa for work. When she heard the news of what had happened in Mali, she checked to see whether Datar might have been affected by it. Then Henderson learned, Datar was in Bamako, where the attack took place.

Henderson said she spent the day waiting, "expecting her to just post: ‘I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.’"

"I’m in shock," Henderson said. "She’s always been such a kind soul, and she cared deeply about people, and her work obviously shows that."

Maceo Thomas, a longtime friend who lives in the District, met Datar when both were serving in the Peace Corps in Senegal. She chased him down one day as he was leaving a volunteer center.

"She sprinted toward me — I was like, ‘Who is that?’ " he remembered. "She thought I was Indian, and she was just happy to see another Indian there."

Thomas is not Indian, but they often laughed about her mistaken impression and built a friendship around long conversations about race and social-justice issues.

"She is very, very serious about social-justice stuff," Thomas said. "We talked a lot about race, about colourism, about Indian culture and their issues with colour.

"She got very passionate in conversations."

Copyright: Washington Post