Somali mother reunites with daughter after 39 years apart

Rahma Ismail Mire, a Somali mother, has been reunited with her daughter after 39 years apart.

Rahma Ismail met her daughter in Baidoa after she was tracked down on a social networking site called ‘Illin Tir’.

Rahma Ismail, who is now 66 years old, divorced her then husband Ibrahim Abdullahi Issack and gave birth to a daughter in 1982, at the age of 16. Rahma then left Mogadishu in August 1982 and has lived in Somaliland ever since.

The Somali mother married a soldier at the time and settled in Burao where she lived for many years and had other children.

But Fartun Ibrahim, Rahma’s daughter, she was raised by her father, a construction engineer, who later died.

Rahma arrived in Mogadishu earlier this week in search of her daughter in the area they had last lived in Howlwadag district, but when she arrived in the neighborhood where she left 39 years ago, she noticed a dramatic change as the neighborhood, renowned for small houses and cottages, now turned into bumbling area with high rise apartment buildings.

Fortunately, when a video of Rahma Ismail asking people to contact her missing 39-year-old daughter was posted on the social network site Ilintir, the audience who had happened to be viewing the video miraculously included Fartun Ibrahim, who was now living in Baidoa.

Fartun contacted her mother immediately within minutes of viewing her mother’s post and contact details, which lead to mother Rahma immediately flying to Baidoa and finally reuniting with her daughter, who is now a mother of ten.