Anita Ashok Datar, a 41-year-old Indian-American development worker, was among the 27 people killed in Friday’s terrorist attack on a hotel in the West African nation of Mali, the US authorities have confirmed.
“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,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a Twitter message.
A senior manager at Palladium, an international development firm, Datar was the only US citizen to die in the seven-hour siege of the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital of Bamako.
Datar also served as a founding board member of Tulalens, a nonprofit group that helped poor women in Chennai and other places around the globe with better health care, including treatment for HIV and guidance for family planning.
“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,” said a statement from the family of Datar, who lived in suburban Washington. She is survived
by her son who is studying in an elementary school, parents and a brother.
“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,” the family said.
Born in Massachusetts and raised in New Jersey, Datar earned a Master’s in public health from Columbia University. When she was in her early 20s, Datar had spent two years in Africa, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal.