Alta. homicides worry Somali-Canadians

Members of Toronto's Somali community are concerned after two Somali-Canadian men were murdered in northern Alberta last week.

RCMP investigators said Monday that two men found dead in an apartment complex in Fort McMurray, Alta., last week were victims of homicide.

Idiris Abess, 23, and Saed Adad, 22, were found dead on Feb. 17. They were both originally from the Toronto area.

Ahmed Hussen, the national director of the Canadian Somali Congress, said last week's homicides brought the number of Somali-Canadians killed in Alberta over the past four years to 29.

Hussen said most of the murder victims moved from the Toronto area to northern Alberta in search of high-paying jobs in the oil and gas sector.

"It’s a major concern," said Hussen, who spent the past 10 weeks in Alberta trying to get a sense of why so many young Somali-Canadians have been killed.

Adad spent two years in jail on a gun charge before he moved west, and investigators in Alberta said both of the men killed last week were known to police.

Hussen, however, said most of the slain men were in Alberta looking for work.

"Our people are no longer immigrants," he said. "They’re Canadians who are having a difficult time integrating into the mainstream."

Hussen said only one of the 29 homicides has been solved.  Some members of the Somali-Canadian community plan on launching an email and phone campaign to try and push local politicians and police to pay more attention to the killings.

RCMP officials in Alberta were not immediately available for comment.