Sudanese-American Woman Elected Deputy Mayor Of Iowa City, US
12 January, 2020
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - Sudanese Engineer Mazahir Salih has been elected Deputy Mayor of the U.S Iowa City for 2020-2022.
According to her declared job description, Engineer Mazahir will stand for the City’s mayor in his absence.
The election was carried out during an extraordinary session of the City’s Council on the night of Thursday the 2nd of January, 2020, during which the Council elected its member Bruce Teague as the City’s Mayor for two years.
Mazahir is believed to be the first Sudanese-American woman elected to hold public office in the United States, according to press reports reaching here, quoting a representative of the Sudanese- American Public Affairs Association.
In January 2018 Mazahir was elected member of Iowa City Council, having collected 77% of City’s Council votes.
Engineer Mazahir hails from the Island of Magasir in Northern Sudan, but has grown up within her poor family in the town of Genaid in the central part of the country.
She travelled to the U.S after graduation as engineer from the Sudan University of Science and Technology 20 years ago, in search of better living conditions for herself and her family back home.
She says she had tried her best to cope with her new society, doing a lot of academic and other jobs and active in social work until she became a businesswoman in her first working place, the State of Virginia,
She is married to Asaad Makkawi from whom she mothered five children: Luma Makkawi (daughter), Ramy Makkawi (son), Walid Makkawi (son), Mohamed Makkawi (son), and Mazen Makkawi (son).
The couple had met and espoused in the state of Virginia.
Mazahir and her family came to Iowa in 2012, and she is reported to have graduated in May 2016 with an associate’s degree from the University of Iowa.
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