A young Toronto man living in Fort McMurray, has been found dead in what police suspect is a homicide.
Friends have identified the body of 19-year-old Abdinasir Ali, who was found in an apartment by police responding to an anonymous call for help on Thursday.
The RCMP is investigating.
A friend says Ali, who was of Somali descent, moved to Alberta a year ago to find a job but may have been involved with criminal activity after he arrived.
Ali is the 30th young Somali-Canadian man killed in Alberta since 2005.
His death is the latest in a disturbing pattern that sees men who move from Ontario to Alberta killed amid an escalating gang and drug turf war.
The Somali-Canadian community is reeling, but taking action.
The Canadian Somali Congress has partnered with Edmonton’s Alberta Somali Community Centre to push for a province-led task force to investigate the deaths.
“It’s very painful to the community to hear of yet another fatality,” said Ahmed Hussen, the congress’ national president. “But the community isn’t sitting back. We’re doing something about this.”
The two groups are petitioning the Alberta government to form a task force of provincial elected officials, police, criminologists, community leaders, members of the public and parents and victims.
They are seeking 10,000 signatures and have already collected 1,500 names just weeks into the campaign.
“This issue is huge, it’s bigger than our community,” Hussen said. “We don’t have the full resources or the full expertise to deal with it internally.”
Hussen said the goals of the task force would be to investigate the scope of the problem, pinpoint obstacles that stop the police from solving the outstanding cases, and make recommendations to prevent more young men from dying.