Chris Hrapsky
KTTC TV
Thursday, May 08, 2008
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Muhubo Karey  |
Now this war, half way around the world, is hitting one Rochester family with the worst kind of pain.
There are many Somali families in Rochester that would like America to take notice of the war back home, but the fighting in Somalia is literally wiping out the lineage of one Rochester family.
Back in 1991 civil war broke out in Somalia after the end of a dictatorship.
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Since then, there have been fights for control.But the fight has changed.
Neighboring Ethiopia is occupying the country's capital, Mogadishu, and supporting the warlord-run Federal Transitional Government.
Together they are at war against the Somali Islamist cults.
The Rochester family you will meet says Ethiopians soldiers are killing at will and committing genocide.
The family says they feel helpless.
Muhubo Karey got up early Wednesday morning to answer the phone. It was a message from Somalia: Another relative of hers was shot dead on Tuesday.
Karey says, "He told me that your cousin...he died last night. They killed him. Everyday, everyday one of my family members dies."
Karey says seven of her relatives have been murdered by Ethiopian soldiers within the last year-and-a-half.
She says they receive phone calls from Somalia every night.
Some of them from people they don't know asking for money, other phone calls, the worst phone calls, are from family to notify of another death.
"They call me every single day. Seven or six different people because my family is there," says Karey.
When asked if they call her for hope, Karey says, "They ask me for help, because they don't have food. They don't have nothing, nothing."
The station France 24 gives us to a glimpse at life in Mogadishu.
One Somali woman says, "The Ethiopians are committing a genocide against our people. They are torturing our woman and children. They looted our houses."
Karey says she would bring her family members over to Rochester is she had the chance, but she doesn't have the money to do that.
She says it would cost around $40,000.
For Karey, the news about her family's deaths brings sadness at night.
Her inability to help brings guilt during the day.
She says, "Sometimes I don't have any money, so I feel guilty sometimes. It's so sad, so sad."
Her goal is not to raise money here, but to gain support from the U.S. government to help her family and her people get out of poverty, out of war, and back to peace.
Muhubo Karey and her husband moved to the U.S. 15 years ago to get away from the violence and start a new life. They have six girls and a boy on the way.
Source: KTTC TV, May 08, 2008