Birth Name: Ilhan Abdullahi Omar
Place of Birth: Mogadishu, Somalia
Date of Birth: October 4, 1981
Ethnicity: Somali, Bendari
Ilhan Omar is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she has been a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, since January 3, 2019.
She was born in Mogadishu, the daughter of Fadhuma Abukar Haji Hussein and Nur Omar Mohamed. Her father is of Somali descent and her mother is of Bendari ancestry, a group of partially Yemenite ancestry. Ilhan is married to Ahmed Hirsi, with whom she has three children.
She is a Muslim and belongs to the Majeerteen clan.
Her family left Somalia during the Somali Civil War in the 1990s, first living in the Dadaab refugee camp in nearby Garissa County, Kenya, and then the U.S., eventually settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ilhan became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
Ilhan’s grandfather was named Abukar. He was the director of Somalia’s National Marine Transport.