Victim's sister calls on Somali community to help solve recent slayings
The sister of one of the four Somali men killed in the Edmonton area recently is urging members of the city's Somali community to step forward to help solve the crimes.
"They say life happens in a blink of an eye. In one corner of the country, I blinked and he died," Muna Ibrahim said at a meeting of the city's Somali community Wednesday as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Ibrahim's older brother, Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, 24, was shot dead outside the River Cree Casino just outside Edmonton on Aug. 30. Two men have been charged in connection with his death.
"I'm reminded daily about my loss in the eyes of my siblings, the sobs of my mother and father and in the broken smiles of friends and family," she said.
Ibrahim is one of four men of Somali descent, some with connections to Ontario, who have been slain in or near Edmonton since the end of August.
Members of Edmonton's Somali community met with Edmonton police Chief Mike Boyd Wednesday in the wake of a shooting of another Somali man on Tuesday morning.
The man, who has not been identified, survived the early morning shooting.
Police believe some of these homicides are related to drugs or gangs, but Ibrahim said her brother was not involved in any kind of illegal activity.
'We are all grieving'
Most of the recent slayings remain unsolved, and Ibrahim called on members of Edmonton's Somali community to step forward with information.
"We're all grieving. We're all feeling the same loss," she said.
"We just hope that the community will outreach to us and give us more information and details on the current unresolved cases that are currently going on and we want to make sure that justice is served for all of our sons that have been lost in this."
Boyd has met several times with the Somali community over the past two weeks in response to criticism police weren't doing enough to solve these cases.
The community is gaining more confidence in the police, Boyd said, and he is optimistic there will be a break in these cases.
"As we continue to work with the members of the community, there is information out there that does have investigative value and will go a long way to solving these cases," he said.
Ibrahim said she was reassured by what Boyd said at the meeting, and believes he will stick to his promise to put all the resources he can towards solving these cases.