The pregnant 33-year-old Global Initiative staffer who was killed in the Kenya mall shooting was “just a couple weeks away from delivery,” President Bill Clinton revealed Tuesday.
Elif Yavuz, senior vaccines researcher based in Tanzania, and her boyfriend Ross Langdon, were hoping to have their child in Kenya in what they believed to be a safe location.
“She and her baby’s father were walking in that mall in Nairobi, because she wanted to have the baby in Kenya. She thought that would be best. And they were both killed,” Clinton said on “CBS This Morning.”
Yavuz and Langdon were rising humanitarian workers, and sought out projects that made an impact. Yavuz primary focus was finding a cure to disease.
Yavuz had joined the Clinton foundation after graduating from Harvard and planned on spending the remainder of her pregnancy in the safe hospitals of Nairobi, a friend of Yavuz told the New York Daily News.
“We were shocked and terribly saddened to learn of the death of Elif Yavuz in the senseless attacks in Nairobi,” Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton said in a separate statement. “Elif devoted her life to helping others, particularly people in developing countries suffering from malaria and HIV/AIDS. Elif was brilliant, dedicated, and deeply admired by her colleagues, who will miss her terribly.”