Deka Mohamed Siad, 69, ran Vanguard Home Health Care alongside her late husband, former ambassador Abdikarim Ali Omar, according to New York Post reporting. The firm appeared legitimate on paper, filed proper documentation, and operated until Omar’s death in 2021. The business served elderly patients across central Ohio and billed the federal Medicare program for home healthcare services over the course of its operation.

But Deka isn’t just any businesswoman. She’s the daughter of Mohamed Siad Barre, the dictator who seized Somalia in a 1969 coup and ruled with an iron fist for 21 years before being toppled in 1991. During his tenure, Barre’s regime became synonymous with brutal repression, human rights violations, and the systematic persecution of clans deemed threats to his authority. His rule ended when the country descended into civil war and he fled into exile, dying in Nigeria in 1995.

“Siad Barre and his men committed so many war crimes so I was shocked to see his son [Ayanle] in the mosque enjoying his freedom.”

Deka and her brother, Ayanle Mohamed Siad, 61, settled near Columbus after the regime fell. Both live among a 70,000-strong Somali community that includes refugees who fled the very dictatorship their father commanded. Columbus has become one of the largest Somali population centers in the United States, with many arrivals having escaped violence, famine, and political persecution during the collapse of Somalia’s government in the early 1990s.

That proximity has ignited outrage. Ali-Guban Mohamed, 64, whose relatives were killed by Barre’s forces, told the Post he was stunned to encounter the dictator’s son at a local mosque. For many survivors, the discovery that the family has been living openly in their community represents a profound betrayal, particularly given the lack of accountability for crimes committed during the regime.

‘Right-hand-man’ son of genocidal Somali dictator who killed 200,000 found living in Ohio, linked to $1.8M Medicare firm https://t.co/kA6cc1ThHupic.twitter.com/KuTFRwkU9k

— New York Post (@nypost) September 11, 2026

Ayanle wasn’t just the dictator’s son — he was a power broker inside the regime. Oxford researcher Mohamed Haji Ingiriis told the Post that Ayanle ran daily government affairs from Villa Somalia after his father was injured in a car accident. He could hire and fire officials at will. This level of authority suggests he was deeply involved in the regime’s operations during some of its most repressive years, raising questions about his knowledge of and potential involvement in the atrocities carried out under his father’s rule.

Today Ayanle owns a translation firm, holds a stake in a Columbus coffee shop, and launched a nonprofit in 2004. He has never publicly condemned his father. His apparent integration into American business and civic life stands in stark contrast to the legacy of violence his father left behind in Somalia, where entire communities still bear the scars of the regime’s campaign of terror.

Barre’s forces turned on the Isaaq clan in northern Somalia between 1987 and 1989 in what became known as the Isaaq genocide, according to the Center for Justice and Accountability. Aerial bombardment leveled roughly 70 percent of Hargeisa and killed more than 5,000 civilians, while nearly half a million Somalis fled to Ethiopia. The systematic nature of these attacks, which targeted civilian infrastructure including hospitals and water supplies, has been documented by human rights organizations and researchers. Mass graves discovered in the region after the regime’s fall provided physical evidence of the scale of killing.

A federal court in 2012 found former Somali defense minister Mohamed Ali Samantar liable for atrocities and ordered him to pay $21 million. That civil case, brought under the Torture Victim Protection Act, established a precedent for holding former regime officials accountable in U.S. courts. Activist Suleiman Bolaleh, who documented the regime’s crimes, wants the same scrutiny applied to Barre’s children.

“I am calling for an investigation to be opened against his family to find out exactly what they were doing during the civil war, what they know and to give up any proceeds they may have inherited from this criminal genocidal dictator.”

The Medicare-funded business operated in plain sight for years before closing in 2021. No charges have been filed, but survivors say the family’s comfortable American life — funded in part by taxpayer dollars — is an insult to the victims buried in mass graves back home. The case raises broader questions about how thoroughly U.S. immigration and naturalization authorities vet applicants with ties to foreign regimes accused of mass atrocities, and whether the children of dictators should face special scrutiny when seeking to operate businesses that receive federal funding.