Dekha Ibrahim Abdi dies in car accident

Dekha Ibrahim Abdi 1964 - 2011

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Friday, July 15, 2011

On July 14th, Right Livelihood Award Laureate and global peacemaker Dekha Ibrahim Abdi passed away in a hospital in Nairobi after a severe car accident the week before. She leaves behind four children.

The Swedish Embassy in Nairobi and COPA (Coalition for Peace in Africa) told the Right Livelihood Award Foundation that Dekha’s and her husband’s car crashed frontally into a truck. Dekha’s husband and the driver died right on the spot. Dekha was taken to Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi, where she passed away today at 11.45 am. The funeral took place this afternoon.

The Right Livelihood Award Foundation and its Laureates are shocked and incredibly sad over Dekha's death.

Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of the Foundation, said: "Dekha Ibrahim embodied all the values of the Right Livelihood Award. She was a globally active peacemaker and teacher of conflict resolution. She had acquired her deep insights into conflict dynamics not as an academic but through her grassroots activism as a young woman in Northern Kenya who simply could not accept the violence between the different ethnic communities. She later used her own experience to help and train others. Her relentless dedication to the cause and her ability to inspire people have made her a global role model, who will be terribly missed by all who strive for peace."

A leader in peace building, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi had received the Right Livelihood Award in 2007 "... for showing in diverse ethnic and cultural situations how religious and other differences can be reconciled, even after violent conflict, and knitted together through a cooperative process that leads to peace and development".
 
She had been actively involved in the peace process after the post-election violence in 2008, and has worked together with organisations and international conflict transformation experts world-wide, e.g. in the UK, but also at the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).

For more information and Dekha’s biography, please visit
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/abdi.html

A recent picture from Dekha Ibrahim Abdi can be downloaded here. Please credit the photographer: Wolfgang Schmidt.

For more pictures please visit our ftp-server.

"The participation in a peace process is not about the mathematics of numbers and percentages in relation to who is in majority or minority. It is about plurality, diversity, participation and ownership of all affected by the conflict ..."   Dekha Ibrahim Abdi