Somali President Hassan Mohamud Pays Tribute to Boxing Champion Ramla Ali in Mogadishu

Ramla Ali’s Homecoming: A Boxer’s Quiet Power in a Country Finding Its Feet

At Aden Adde International Airport, where the palm fronds sway and the wind blows in from the Indian Ocean, a ripple of applause rolled down the arrivals hall. Flag-waving fans pressed forward, mothers hoisted toddlers onto their hips, and the noise swelled into a chant for a fighter who once trained in secret. Ramla Ali—Somalia’s first Olympic boxer and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador—was back in Mogadishu.

On Sunday, the 35-year-old featherweight touched down to a hero’s welcome. The following day, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud received her at the Presidential Palace, praising her as “a symbol of encouragement and unity.” He presented an honorary certificate, recognizing Ali’s rise from a displaced child to a national figure who carries the blue-starred flag onto the world’s biggest stages. In a country often defined abroad by its hardships, Ali’s return was a scene of rare, uncomplicated joy.

A champion shaped by displacement—and defiance

Ali was born in Mogadishu on Sept. 16, 1989, and left as a child when her family fled the civil war. Her brother, just 12, had been killed by a mortar. Like many Somalis, the family passed through Kenya before settling in London. There, the young Ali discovered boxing, slipping into gyms and training quietly, away from the eyes of people who might not understand why a Somali girl would want to fight.

She kept fighting anyway. Ali won England’s national novice title in 2015, then the elite national championships the next year, and the African Zone featherweight title in 2019. In Tokyo, at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Games, she became Somalia’s first-ever Olympic boxer—an athlete who made history just by stepping into the ring.

Since turning professional in 2020, Ali has put together a 10–2 record. Those are the numbers, but they don’t capture what she means to many Somalis: a statement that their country can produce champions, that their daughters can be athletes, that even the most fragile stories can carry force and poise.

In the Palace, and in the streets, a shared message

In Mogadishu, Ali thanked the President and spoke of seeing positive change during his second term. Security remains a daily challenge and politics is never far from the conversation here, but sport offers a different language—one of aspiration, resilience, and shared pride. At the Palace, formality; at the airport, a swirl of ululations and smartphone flashes. The mood was the same in both places: possibility.

Ali’s presence resonates because it connects intimate memory to public achievement. For the diaspora families who fled fighting and made new lives in Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Toronto, and London, her path feels familiar: loss, adaptation, and a quiet resolve to keep moving. For young Somali women, her ascent cracks open doors long assumed to be closed. In London, Ali has supported women-only boxing classes—most famously through initiatives known as the Sisters Club—making space for women, including Muslim women and survivors of violence, to find confidence and community through sport.

Sport as nation-building, one glove at a time

Somalia’s sports infrastructure is modest, but its ambitions are less so. Mogadishu Stadium has been revived, football stirs weekly debate, and a generation that grew up with more smartphone screens than sports fields is learning to dream beyond borders. Remittances from the Somali diaspora—measured in the billions of dollars annually—have long helped households survive; now, a growing stream of returnees brings skills, investments, and, yes, inspiration.

The power of an athlete’s homecoming lies precisely in this mix. It’s not just the photographs or the medal standings. It’s the suggestion that something that seemed fragile can hold. That a different story line can take root. When President Mohamud calls Ali a force for unity, he is tapping into that idea: that sports, like music and food, knit a country together in ways policy white papers rarely can.

A wider trend: athletes as bridge-builders

From refugee athletes competing under the Olympic flag to diaspora stars returning to mentor youth in their parents’ homelands, the world has grown used to seeing sport play diplomat. It’s not always tidy. The politics of identity can be complicated, and representation comes with expectations. But the arc is unmistakable. Athletes from conflict-affected countries are rewriting how their nations are perceived, and how young people see themselves.

Ramla Ali is one of those bridge-builders. As a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, she has spoken about the right of girls to learn and play, to be safe, to be visible. In the ring, she is a technician—calm, rangy, disciplined. Outside it, she is a communicator. She doesn’t need to shout to be heard.

Why this moment matters for Somalia

For a country better known internationally for conflict and crisis, Ali’s reception offered a counterpoint grounded in pride rather than pity. That matters because narratives have a way of becoming policy, and policy has a way of shaping lives. If the only story about Somalia is a grim one, the world sees only emergency. If the fuller story is told—of artists, entrepreneurs, scholars, and athletes—then cooperation can look like investment, partnership, and opportunity.

Ali’s story also underscores a more intimate shift: the normalization of women’s leadership in the public square. Somali women have always held families and communities together; the difference now is visibility and voice. When a woman fighter becomes a national icon, the edges of the possible expand for schoolgirls watching. And for boys, too, who will grow up seeing women compete, lead, and win.

What comes next

Ali will soon return to training and the grind of the professional circuit: early runs, sparring sessions, film study, discipline that looks nothing like applause. For her country, the task is similar. Translate the thrill of the moment into investments that last—youth gyms, safe spaces for women athletes, scholarships, and mentorship networks that help talent grow roots at home. Even small steps can make an outsized difference.

There’s a question for all of us, too: What do we expect from our athletes beyond their split decisions and scorecards? They are not policy makers; they shouldn’t have to carry the weight of national aspirations alone. Yet when they come home, when they give children new vocabulary for their dreams, that is a public good worth celebrating—and supporting.

On a bright morning in Mogadishu, where the ocean light turns the city almost silver, a boxer stepped into a terminal and a crowd surged forward to greet her. No belts hung from her shoulders, no medal ribbon around her neck. Just the quiet authority of someone who has already fought her way through the hardest rounds and come back to say: we can do more than survive. We can win.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.