WASHINGTON—As a Peace Corps volunteer, expert in global health, and the mother of a young boy, Anita Ashok Datar devoted her life to caring for and helping others, her family said.
Datar, of Takoma Park, Maryland, was one of at least 20 people killed in Friday’s terror attack on a hotel in Mali, the State Department confirmed in a statement.
No other U.S. citizens were believed to have died in the attack, carried out by heavily armed Islamic extremists at a Radisson hotel in the Malian capital of Bamako.
“We are devastated that Anita is gone,” her family said in a statement issued through the State Department. “It’s unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism.”
Datar, 41, was a senior manager at Palladium Group, an international development organization with offices in Washington, her family said. As a public health expert, she focused on family planning and HIV issues, work that took her to Africa often in the past 15 years. She also worked in Asia and South America, according to her LinkedIn profile.
