This is not the first post we’ve written on Somali gang violence taking the lives of Somali “kids” in Canada. (check ourCanada category for more if you are interested).
Here is one thing I wonder, what is the age at which Somalis don’t call their 26-year-olds “kids” anymore, and when do we call them men?
This is the latest, this time from Toronto, on the violent deaths of Somali men. From the Toronto Star:
Last week, Abdul Warsame spent an afternoon at the Khalid Bin-Walid mosque in the Rexdale neighbourhood mourning 28-year-old Abdulaziz Farah. In a fiery sermon to the hundreds gathered, he warned parents and youngsters that “it’s a matter of time until another Somali kid is killed.”
Within days, those words had come true.
Four days later, early on Tuesday, two young men were shot to death on Jamestown Cres., in a notorious west-end neighbourhood. They were the fifth and sixth Somali-Canadian men to be killed in gun violence in Toronto since early June.
“I am heartbroken,” said Warsame, co-founder of a mentorship program for Somali-Canadian youth. “What should we do … our kids are dying.”
He’s not exaggerating.
The bloodletting started when Ahmed Hassan, 24, was shot dead at the Eaton Centre on June 2. Hussein Hussein, 23, died on June 23. Abdulle Elmi, 25, on July 8. Abdulaziz Farah, 28, on Sept. 8.
And then on Tuesday, Suleiman Ali and Warsame Ali, both 26, were found dead with gunshot wounds in an alley in an Etobicoke townhouse complex.
The spate of violence has left the Somali community in Toronto crushed, its leaders desperately seeking answers.
They want more programs and services, yup that will fix the problem (not!)
They have held meetings throughout the summer to understand why their young men are getting killed and how they can help keep them safe. They’ve asked federal and provincial politicians for more programs and services to help young people get through school and find jobs. They have asked Toronto Police to help.
Somalis have highest unemployment rate of any ethnic group in Canada (gee, whose fault is that?)
There are an estimated 80,000 Somalis in Toronto, another few thousand in Ottawa and, community leaders say, about 3,000 in Fort McMurray, Alta.
For long, the community has battled poverty and unemployment. It tried to deal with many single-parent households. The unemployment rate for Somali-Canadians is above 20 per cent, the highest of any ethnic group.
Canadian Somali “kids” also thumbed their noses at Canada and went for jihad training in Somali. Are we going to blame this on lack of services, or on what they are being taught in some mosques?
Between 2009 and 2011, at least two dozen young men from Toronto and Ottawa — and two young women — disappeared, allegedly to fight alongside Al Shabaab in Somalia, an Islamist youth militia aligned with Al Qaeda.
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