Winnipeg soccer player fatally shot Saturday 'was loved,' tournament president says
CBC
The African soccer community of Winnipeg is in shock after a 22-year-old soccer player was killed over the weekend in what police believe was a targeted attack.
Winnipeg police were called at around 11:45 p.m. Saturday, after Mohamed Yusuf Abdullahi was found unresponsive and suffering from gunshot wounds outside of the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex on Waverley Street, Const. Dani McKinnon said at a Monday news conference.
Abdullahi had just finished playing in the Canada African Cup of Nations' 2024 tournament, and McKinnon says he was exiting the event through the complex's parking lot when he was shot.
"He was just exiting through the parking lot, I imagine with a number of other people [there], and the shooting occurred," she said.
He was taken to hospital in critical condition and pronounced dead.
Gode Katembo, president of the Canada African Cup of Nations, says he was inside the complex when the shooting happened about 20 minutes after games had ended.
"I thought it was just fireworks, until I looked at the parking lot and people were running back into the facility," he said at a Monday afternoon news conference.
"That was when I realized something was off."
Katembo says he didn't know Abdullahi personally, but the 22-year-old was playing on Team Eritrea in the tournament.
"He was a young man that was loved by the community," Katembo said.
"This is a shock, this is a pain, this is a tragedy in the community. And the family is still processing this," he said.
"We're all traumatized."
While it's too early to say what the shooter's motive was, McKinnon said Abdullahi's killing is "generally believed to be a targeted" attack, adding that police already have key evidence and witnesses which led them to that conclusion.
"We're not saying we don't have any information," she said.