People with ‘a desire to help’ among victims of Mali terrorist attack

It was a typical guest list at an African hotel in a troubled region: aid workers from all over, trying to make things better; Russian pilots; Chinese business people; Western politicians; American military personnel.

When terrorists linked to one of Al Qaeda’s many West African affiliates stormed into the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the Malian capital, early Friday, among those killed were U.S. aid worker Anita Datar, who was working on health projects for women, including family planning and HIV; six Russians working for Volga-Dnepr Airlines; three executives from the state-owned Chinese railway company; a Belgian regional parliament member; and an Israeli education consultant. At least eight others have not been named.

Two gunmen also died in the siege, and Malian authorities were hunting at least three more terrorists. The extremist group Al Mourabitoun, associated with veteran Algerian terrorist and Al Qaeda loyalist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, claimed responsibility.

Datar, 41, friends said, was unfailingly kind and passionate about making a better world. She left a son, Rohan, who attends elementary school.

The former Peace Corps volunteer worked for the Palladium Group, serving as a senior director for a reproductive health project in developing countries called HP+. She was also a founding board member of Tulalens, an organization that crowd-sources feedback from women on health facilities in poor communities to help them get access to better services.

“We are all deeply saddened,” said a friend, Tara Elms Henderson of Budd Lake, N.J. “She was kind to all around her — funny, smart, a beautiful human being. Always a friend to all. We knew she was destined for great things. She always had a desire to help.”

Henderson said she felt angry and sad, “especially when special people doing great things are lost. It’s a scary world, for sure.”

Friends and colleagues on Saturday paid tribute to Datar, who had been in Mali with two colleagues, both of whom escaped the hotel safely.

“She will be remembered as a dedicated humanitarian and a trusted and beloved colleague,” a statement on the Palladium Group’s website said.

“She was amazing,” another friend, Rashad Bajwa, posted on Facebook, saying that as his resident assistant at Rutgers, “she had a profound impact on me. She was way better than me and most people I know. A huge heart that has been prematurely extinguished.”

In Ulyanovsk, Russia, where five of the slain airline employees lived, Gov. Sergei Morozov declared Monday a day of mourning. A spokesman for Volga-Dnepr said the company had been delivering construction equipment from Oslo to Mali.

As families and friends mourned, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday called for a stronger global coalition to fight terrorism, saying that it threatened all nations.

In a telegram to Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Mali’s president, he said, “The inhuman crime committed in the capital of Mali once again proves that terrorism knows no borders and poses a real danger for the entire world. People of various nationalities and religions fall victims of it. This threat can be opposed only based on a wide-scale international cooperation.”

France has vowed to cooperate with Russia to fight Islamic State, and other leaders, including President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, have softened criticism over Russian airstrikes in Syria.

Russian news media recently carried video of a Russian air crew writing the words “For Paris” and “For Our People” on bombs to be dropped in Syria after Islamic State claimed responsibility for placing a bomb a Russian passenger jet from the Sinai Peninsula resort of Sharm el Sheik, killing all 224 people on board. Putin on Tuesday vowed to intensify strikes against Islamic State and to hunt down those responsible for bombing the civilian airliner.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday also called for greater international cooperation against terrorism and condemned the “cruel and savage” attack in Mali in a statement from the Foreign Ministry. China, with a massive business and investment presence in Africa, is vulnerable in countries such as Mali, where terrorist groups are active.

“China will strengthen cooperation with the international community, resolutely crack down on violent terrorist operations that devastate innocent lives and safeguard world peace and security,” the Foreign Ministry quoted Xi as saying in a statement on its website.

The deaths of the Chinese railway executives in Mali came after Islamic State claimed responsibility last week for the beheading of a Chinese national, Fan Jinghui, without saying where or when he and Norwegian citizen Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad were killed. Chinese officials called it a “savage act devoid of all humanity” and vowed to strengthen international cooperation against terrorism.

President Keita said Saturday that Mali would outlast terrorists, who have increasingly pushed south from their northern strongholds to carry out attacks in Bamako and elsewhere.

“Mali will not closed down because of this attack. Paris is not, Geneva is not, New York is not, Moscow is not. Terrorism will not win,” Keita told reporters Saturday during a visit to the Radisson Blu hotel.

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko in Moscow contributed to this report.

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