Slain Canadian-Somali journalist Nalayeh a trailblazer

As bombings and attacks rocked the African nation of Somalia in recent years, Canadian-Somali journalist Hodan Nalayeh found what she believed was a higher calling: Showcasing the hidden beauty of her homeland and its people.

On Twitter, she shared posts featuring marine life dangling from the hands of fishermen, a small boat setting out in cerulean waters, and locals holding leopard-spotted stingrays.

"Dried fish is big business on the island of #Ilisi. They call this fish 'Shabeelka Bada,' or 'tiger of the ocean,'" Nalayeh wrote Thursday.

"People save all their lives to have a retirement by the beach, yet we have plenty of it and cannot see its value. Let's appreciate the beautiful blessings we have," she wrote in an earlier posting.

On Friday, the journalist dedicated to telling positive stories from a country suffering through decades of civil war, extremist attacks and famine was killed along with her husband, Farid Jama Suleiman, entrepreneur Mahad Nur and at least 23 others after a bomb exploded outside the Asasey Hotel in the Somali city of Kismayo and gunmen stormed inside. Fifty-six other people were wounded in the attack, according to the Jubbaland regional president.

Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the 14-hour assault that ended as troops killed the gunmen.

On Saturday, friends and family reeled as they heard that Nalayeh, 43, a journalist and mother expecting her third child, was among the dead.

Maaz Khan, a 24-year-old filmmaker in Toronto, said Nalayeh had shared her hard-earned wisdom when he met her a few years ago.

"She was always very inspiring," he told The Associated Press. "She would say, 'It's tough in the beginning, but always push through and don't give up on your passion.'"