Diversity is beautiful alert!
Here is another Somali in Pennsylvania story (see Erie earlier today) this time one with an apparently sad ending. A Pakistani man is under arrest for kidnapping his Somali girl friend’s baby. Authorities near York, PA are searching for the 7-month-old, but are not hopeful of finding him alive.
Here is how the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer begins, but please read the whole sorry tale. (Hat tip: pungentpeppers)
A PAKISTANI NATIVE who a source said is on the FBI’s terrorist-watch list kidnapped his girlfriend’s baby from an Upper Darby home Sunday and may have killed the 7-month-old and buried his lifeless body along a rural roadside in York, police said.
Ummad Rushdi, 30, has been charged with kidnapping and related offenses after he was arrested early yesterday at his home in York. The baby, Hamza Ali, was last seen alive Saturday night and hasn’t been found, said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.
“Our hope is that the child is alive, but the reality of the investigation thus far . . . is that the baby is probably dead,” Chitwood said.
The baby’s mother, Zainab Gaal, 20, who was born in Somalia and raised in Yemen, began dating Rushdi just three or four weeks ago, police said. Gaal and her son were already living with Rushdi and his brother at their home in York, police said. Authorities didn’t immediately know when Gaal came to the United States, and did not know the whereabouts or identity of her child’s father.
For more information on the Somali woman, the police and reporters should check with the US State Department and the Refugee Resettlement contractors operating in Pennsylvania. Off the top of my head, the major contractors in PA include Church World Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (yes, they resettle Muslims too), US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. One of them will surely know where to reach this woman’s baby’s father or her extended family. Almost all Somalis in the US came in through Refugee Resettlement or the chain migration related to it.
****update**** We hear that the young mother is from Lewiston, Maine. So, check with Catholic Charities (primary refugee contractor bringing Somalis to Maine) up there to see if they will help find her family.
Last week, the three adults and baby Hamza traveled to Upper Darby to stay with Rushdi’s parents at their well-kept stone rowhouse on Chestnut Street near Powell Lane, police said.
Several days before the kidnapping, Rushdi allegedly hurt the baby’s shoulder, Chitwood said. Gaal wanted to take Hamza to the hospital because she feared his shoulder may have been broken, but Rushdi and his parents wanted to “self-medicate” the boy, Chitwood said.
On Sunday morning, Gaal and Rushdi’s family awoke to find Rushdi and Hamza missing, police said. Rushdi’s brother began to relay calls between Rushdi and Gaal, saying that the baby was fine and that Rushdi would return him to Upper Darby, Chitwood said.
Read on for the rest of what the police think may have happened…..
For new readers, Pennsylvania is the 11th state in the list of states receiving the largest number of refugees with 14,365 having been sent there by the US State Department between 2007 and 2013. See where your state ranks by clicking here.