Samia Yusuf Omar - Death

Death

On 19 August 2012, the Corriere della Sera reported that Samia had died while on her way to Italy on a boat from Libya. The information came from her compatriot and fellow runner Abdi Bile, and was "difficult to verify" according to the newspaper. In response to the news, Al Jazeera journalist Teresa Krug, who had previously interviewed Samia and maintained contact with her, reported that Samia had left Ethiopia in 2011, crossed the Sudan and reached Libya, where she was imprisoned for a time for unspecified reasons. She had hoped to reach Italy and find a coach to train for the 2012 London Games. Krug told Rina Brundu of Rosebud: "From the news reports—and her older sister, who had the death confirmed by a fellow passenger—I think the boat accident happened early April 2012. However, this did not come to my attention until a couple weeks ago when Abdi Bile informed the rest of the world".

On 20 August, the BBC reported that it had received confirmation of Samia's death from Somalia's National Olympic Committee. By 21 August, wider English-language media had begun to pick up on the story. The Associated Press reported that Qadijo Aden Dahir, the Deputy Chairman for Somalia's athletics federation, had confirmed that Samia had drowned off the Libyan seaboard in July while trying to reach Italy from her home in Ethiopia. Qadijo added that "it's a sad death...She was our favorite for the London Olympics."