Tuesday, Aug 07, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS - In the war-ravaged land they fled, Somalis got used to burying the bodies of tens of thousands of their dead. They usually knew what killed the victims: maybe a bullet, a hatchet, sickness or starvation.
But in a grim irony for many of the 20,000-plus Somali refugees who came to this city in America's North Country seeking peace and safety, at least two of their own - a pregnant mother and her 20-month-old daughter - are lost in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge. They are among about eight Minnesotans officially listed as missing almost a week after the disaster that killed at least five and injured scores.
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"She's neither," said Fadumo Mohamed, great-aunt of the 23-year-old pregnant mother, Sadiya Sahal. "We don't know where she's at."
The family has become a symbol of how many Somalis feel the catastrophic collapse of the bridge seems to be hitting the Minneapolis Somali community particularly hard.
FBI and U.S. Navy divers intensified the search Tuesday for the missing, pulling one car devoid of a body from the murky Mississippi River and scavenging through the sunken debris and vehicles. But by dusk, as the city marked a minute of silent memory, searchers remained stumped that they have yet to find more bodies.
For Somalis, who have migrated here in the last decade, the bridge was a vital lifeline connecting an established community on one side of the river with a growing Somali neighborhood on the other. Sometimes locals jokingly referred to it as "the Somali Bridge" – a lifeline for the 40,000 to 50,000 Somalis estimated by community leaders to be living in the Twin Cities and their suburbs
Somali cabbies used it. So did Somali truck drivers. At least two Somali drivers were on the bridge when it collapsed and got out alive. So did at least four Somali children who were on a school bus that fell downward in the disaster.
And Somalis interviewed Tuesday said they wouldn't be surprised if the wreckage ultimately yields more Somalis who have yet to be put on a missing persons list.
To the Somalis who live near the bridge, the picture remains unfathomable. After all, they said, bridges collapse in underdeveloped African nations not in metropolitan Minneapolis.
One week ago, Sahal called her home to say she was stuck in rush hour bridge traffic. In a white Toyota Highlander, Sahal's daughter -- Hanah Mohamed, nearly 2 - was strapped in the back seat.
Sahal is a nursing student who came to Minnesota from Somalia seven years ago via a refugee camp in Kenya. She was five months pregnant.
For Mohamed, who knew Sahal when she was a baby in Somalia, it's hard to think she just vanished in death. When Sahal's picture appears on television, Mohamed wonders if maybe Sahal is still alive and lost. And when she thinks of Hanah, whom she babysat and loved kissing on both cheeks, Mohamed's mind grows numb.
"We are in a state of shock," she said, sitting in the entrance of her son's textile shop in a makeshift Somali mall designed to resemble a stall market in Mogadishu.
Still, many in the Somali community recognize the determined scope of the recovery work by American authorities. They grieve like all in the Twin Cities for victims regardless of their nationality, community leaders said.
"They understand the delay," said Keith Ellison, a former Minnesota state legislator who last fall became the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress.
Ellison has met with the family and those in the Somali community in recent days and finds them resolute in support of local, state and national government efforts on the scene.
"They are Minnesotans," he said of the Somalis. "It's (the disaster) right in their neighborhood."
Still, the collapse was something Somalis never expected to witness in their new homeland. And it has some wondering if the American government has misplaced its priorities by ignoring a decaying national infrastructure in favor of its costly foreign policy.
"Instead of building bridges, they spent more on invading countries," said Abbi Osman, a young Somali who came to Minnesota four years ago and was watching buddies play dominoes Tuesday in a Somali coffee shop. "They are investing in the wrong places."
The collapse too adds to uneasy feelings among Somalis who say they have felt a federal backlash since Sept. 11, 2001 not only because of their Muslim faith but also because Somalia has been accused of harboring terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden. The bridge collapse has added jitters for Somalis who in recent years regrouped and rallied around one another.
"This all adds up to be very painful," said Omar Jamal, a Somali who directs the Somali Justice Advocacy Center that fights for Somali rights.
Somalis are planning a memorial service for Sahal and her daughter after Friday noon prayers, Jamal said - with or without their remains being located.
"It would be nice if the community could put some closure on this," he said, "but that will not happen without bodies."
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Source: Chicago Tribune, Aug 07, 2007