Reham Al-Farra (1974 – 2003) was a Jordanian diplomat and politician who was murdered in the Canal Hotel bombing in 2003. Only aged 29 when killed, she served as a Minister of Public Information and for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.[1]
Reham Al-Farra of Jordan was 29 years old when she died along with other United Nations staff members in the terrorist bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq on 19 August 2003.
Ms. Al-Farra travelled to Baghdad from New York — where she had worked in the UN Department of Public Information — to take up temporary duties in the Office of the Spokesman for the Special Representative.
Before joining the UN nine months earlier, Ms. Al-Farra was the first female daily political columnist writing for Al Arab Al Yawm, a prominent newspaper in Amman. She had also been active at the Centre for Defending Freedom of Journalists.
In September 2003, the UN Department of Public Information decided to rename its annual training programme for young journalists “The Reham Al-Farra Memorial Journalists' Fellowship Programme” in memory of her (see the Official Records of the 16th meeting of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee- Fourth Committee- held at UN Headquarters NY on 29 October 2003, A/C.4/58/SR.16 (paragraph 38).
On 19 September 2003, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid tribute to Ms. Al-Farra during a memorial ceremony for those killed in Baghdad: “You chose to work for the United Nations because you wanted to do something for others," Mr. Annan said. "You went to Iraq to make a contribution to the lives of your Arab brothers and sisters. It is their loss as much as ours that you were denied the chance to do that".