Pallbearers carry the casket of Abdinasir Dirie, 19, in Edmonton on Monday, April 26.
Only months into what family believed was a job-seeking move to Canada's boom city, Abdinasir Dirie was arrested and charged with dealing cocaine.
The punishment was swift as he awaited trial. He was barred from leaving his home at night or carrying a cellphone, and had to report regularly to police since the January arrest.
Mr. Dirie, 19, was set to appear in court Tuesday on charges of trafficking and possession of stolen property. Instead, he was killed last week - the latest in a string of young Somali-Canadian men slain in Alberta over the past few years.
Family mourned the teen at a north Edmonton mosque on Monday, choosing to remember him as a provider and a loving son and brother. The family appeared not to know about his criminal charges, saying he'd come for work and was set to fly out of the province Monday, one day before his scheduled court appearance.
"This is unspeakable. Unspeakable. He was a good kid," said the victim's sister-in-law, Hamda Jibril. "I want to know who did this to him, because he did not deserve that."
Asked why he'd come to Alberta within the past year, she said only that he "wanted to see how [the]Fort McMurray job [market]was."
RCMP found Mr. Dirie's body at 5:30 a.m. on April 21, after getting an anonymous phone call. They have not said how he died, but have declared it a homicide.
The slaying comes as some of Alberta's Somali-Canadian community leaders call on the province to create a task force to look into the deaths of, by their count, 30 Somali-Canadians in Alberta over the past five years (The Globe and Mail has only been able to verify 17 cases).
The last three slayings were in Fort McMurray. Most of the victims are Canadian-born, from Toronto, and involved in the drug trade.
Despite rewards offered by homicide investigators in Edmonton, police say the cases have few leads. As such, local Somali-Canadians feel they aren't receiving due attention.
"Most of these killings remain in limbo," lamented Mohamed Abdi, who attended the funeral. "The community is very frustrated. It has been happening for a long time, and it seems to be happening again and again. And nothing seems to be stopping it."
The victim's family say they're afraid to speak out.
"We don't live under the government. We live under the streets," said a woman claiming to be Mr. Dirie's aunt.
Last month, local Somali-Canadian leaders met with Alberta Justice Minister Alison Redford and asked her to strike up a task force to investigate the deaths. She was cool to the idea. The province has since added more police to the region, including a new anti-organized-crime unit.
Calls for a task force were renewed Monday. However, Ms. Redford's spokesman dismissed the notion as too slow and costly.
"We don't want to wait for a task force, which is costly, time-consuming and lengthy," spokesman Jay O'Neill said.
The rejection, accompanied by a suggestion to apply for a grant, did not sit well with Mahamad Accord, head of the local Alberta Somali Community Centre, who had met with Ms. Redford.
"Why do I have to do the job of the government?" Mr. Accord said. "I think that if we really want to have results which are credible and very thorough, it will be in a government-led task force."
They expect to see more murders without such a government-led solution.
"The community is getting very desperate," Mr. Abdi said. "They're losing hope."
With a report from Dawn Walton in Calgary