# Zahra Abdulla (Sahra Cabdulla)

> Zahra Abdulla (b.1966): Somali-born Helsinki city councillor, 1997 to 2017.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/people/zahra-abdulla/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## Who is she?

Zahra Abdulla is a Somali-born Finnish politician who sat on Helsinki City Council from 1997 to 2017 for the Green League ([Wikipedia, Zahra Abdulla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Abdulla)). She was born in Somalia in 1966 and spent her early years in Egypt and Kenya (same source).

## From Moscow to Helsinki

She studied medicine in Moscow ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Abdulla)). The break-up of the Soviet Union and the start of the Somali civil war led her to seek asylum in Finland, and she became a Finnish citizen in 1998 (same source). She worked for a time as a midwife (same source). See [Somalis in Finland](/en/diaspora/finland/).

## Politics

In the 2007 Finnish parliamentary election she polled 4,174 votes and was beaten by Green League colleague Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto, who had 4,586 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Abdulla)). Had she won, she would have been the first Somali immigrant in the Finnish parliament (same source). In 2015 she left the Greens' council group, and in that year's parliamentary election she backed Veronika Honkasalo of the Left Alliance (same source).

## In short

A Somali-born former medical student and midwife who served twenty years on Helsinki City Council.

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