The 41-year-old Takoma Park, MD, resident only known American killed in the attack.
AB Wire
One of the 21 people killed in a terror attack at Radisson Hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali, on Friday is an Indian American international development worker, who lived in the Washington, DC, suburbs.
According to The Washington Post, Anita Datar, 41, from Takoma Park, Md., is the only American “known to have died in the attack.”
The paper reported that the American ambassador to Mali informed her family of the tragedy on Friday afternoon.
“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,” the Post quoted Datar’s brother Sanjeev Datar as saying. “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.”
The attack was carried out by al-Murabitoun, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Datar, a divorcee, was a senior manager at the international development group Palladium, the Post said.
Datar, who grew up in New Jersey, went to Mount Olive High School in Flanders, N.J., earned an undergraduate degree from Rutgers and a master’s in public health and a master’s in public administration from Columbia University in New York, the paper said.