22-year-old fatally shot after soccer game remembered as devoted family member, volunteer and skilled player

Dozens of mourners came together Saturday to remember a young soccer player who was killed after an evening of matches last weekend at a south end Winnipeg facility.  

Mohamed Yusuf Abdullahi was shot in the parking lot of the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex on Waverley Street July 13 and later died in hospital. A memorial service was held there Saturday where people spoke about his talents on and off the field before participants in the Canada African Cup of Nations returned to action in Abdullahi's honour. 

"He was a good friend and he was a good brother…he was not violent like what happened to him," said Abdullahi's friend and teammate in the Manitoba Major Soccer League, Jean-Paul Murhabazi. "It's a tragedy and he's a good kid." 

"I don't know if I would call him a kid or a man, [on] the field he's a brother, off the field he's a brother," he said. 

Abdullahi was born in Somalia in 2002 and his parents fled civil war there to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, Murhabazi told the crowd as he read a biography of his friend's life during the memorial. 

In 2014, Abdullahi and his family moved to Canada where the 22-year-old eventually graduated from Gordon Bell High School. Murhabazi said off the field, Abdullahi had a passion for mechanics, which he pursued after high school.

He was also devoted to his parents and sisters and loved to run marathons, he said. 

Murhabazi also hailed his friend's volunteer work coaching young children in the sport, telling the crowd he had just organized a weeks' long soccer program for Somali children. 

On the evening of his death Abdullahi had dinner with his father around 4 p.m. and told him he was going to a soccer game. 

"That was the last time that they embraced," Murhabazi told the crowd. 

The crowd also heard from Kadar Ahmed, president of Masjid Bilal known as the Winnipeg Islamic Centre, who said Abdullahi's mother and some immediate relatives recently went to visit Somalia. When Abdullahi's mother found out her son died, she was so stricken with grief she couldn't fly home for his funeral, he said. 

There were also calls for unity and safety Saturday in the wake of Abdullahi's killing. 

African Communities of Manitoba board member Rene Tondji-Simen told the crowd that on behalf of the organization "we are really depressed, the sorrow is deep."

"We also say we're determined to fight against violence, no matter the perpetrator and no matter the target," he said. "What matters is to fight against violence, it's not a way of solving anything. Please learn that and keep that in your mind."