Diaby grew up in Marsassoum, Senegal. The youngest of four children, he was raised by his sister after losing both of his parents by the time he was 7. A graduate of the Cheikh Anta Diop University, he left Senegal to study chemistry in East Germany and received his diploma 1991. In 1996 he received his Doctor of natural science, and stayed past the reunification of Germany, after which he became more involved in political and social activism.
Member of Parliament
On September 22, 2013, Diaby was elected to the Bundestag as a Social Democratic Party candidate from Halle, Saxony-Anhalt; Diaby became one of the first two Bundestag members of African ancestry, alongside Charles M. Huber, who was elected at the same time from the Christian Democratic Union. Diaby currently serves as deputy chairman of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and as full member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment. On the latter, he is his parliamentary group’s rapporteur on matters related to the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the recognition of your foreign qualifications. Within his parliamentary group, he is a member of the working group on municipal policy. He also belongs to the Parliamentary Left, a left-wing movement. In addition to his committee assignments, Diaby is the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the Francophone States of West and Central Africa. Since 2019, he has been a member of the German delegation to the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly. He is also part of the Elie Wiesel Network of Parliamentarians for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and against Genocide Denial. In the negotiations to form a fourthcoalition government under ChancellorAngela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Diaby was part of the working group on migration policy, led by Volker Bouffier, Joachim Herrmann and Ralf Stegner. Diaby's Halle office was shot at on 15 January 2020.
In 2018, Diaby joined other black elected representatives and community leaders from across Europe in signing an open letter in The Guardian supporting Italian politician Cécile Kyenge who had been sued for defamation for calling the Italian League party racist.
