Somalia’s first female pilot returns home

Image of Somalia’s first female pilot, Asli Hassan Abade [Public Diplomacy/Twitter]

Somalia is celebrating the return of Africa’s first female pilot, Africa News reported.

Asli Hassan Abade, 59, returned to her country of birth Somalia after spending two decades away. Abade left Somalia in 1970 to learn to fly in Italy, then moved to the United States where she married an aeroplane engineer.

Having served in the Somali Air Force for ten years, Abade is back in Somalia permanently. Abade last visited Somali in 2011 to airdrop essential medical supplies to famine stricken patients in a children’s hospital in Mogadishu.

Amid a civil war, weakened government and political tensions across federal states in Somalia, Abade provides a fresh perspective on success for women in the African continent.

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