Ilhan Omar, who has become the first American-Somali to be elected to the US Congress, has expressed her determination to push for the protection of women and refugees.

Ms Omar, who fled civil war in Somalia as a child and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, won Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District in the mid-term elections.

She is also the joint first Muslim woman to be elected to Congress, alongside Rashida Tlaib.

Somali-Americans have been celebrating her victory.