By Lavern de Vries
Crime Writer

Abdi Ali Diriye was talking to some of his staff at the general supermarket he managed in Khayelitsha when he was called by a cashier.

Seconds later, the 28-year-old father of three realised that the customer who had just been served was armed with a pistol.

The man, who wore a yellow and green cap, took two strides before he was face to face with Diriye and pulled the trigger twice in succession.

Diriye, who left Somalia about a year ago to settle in South Africa, plunged to the floor in a pool of blood.

During the time it took for the shooting to happen, the robber was joined by an accomplice.

The pair attacked and shot a second employee.

While the men lay bleeding on the floor the two robbers, joined by a third, quickly ran to the three tills and yanked them open, fleeing with an undisclosed sum of money.

Diriye did not survive the attack. The second employee underwent surgery last night to remove a bullet from his fractured shoulder.

Three hours after the shooting, when Diriye was already dead and his colleague had been rushed to hospital, police arrested a Khayelitsha man in connection with the incident.

But for Diriye's family and the larger Somali community, the arrest is not enough.

Although police cannot divulge murder rates and also do not categorise murders according to nationality, the Somali Retail Association estimates that at least 10 Somalis have been murdered since January.

"The criminal justice system is failing us. We hear of arrests, but we have not heard of one conviction since criminals started targeting Somalis," spokesperson Abdi Aden said on Tuesday.

While xenophobic attacks are still fresh in the memories of the large Somali community living in Cape Town, both Aden and a relative of Diriye blame his murder on the failure of the justice system.

"They do this because there is a perception that you can harm, maim or kill a Somali and nothing will happen to you; they do it because there are no consequences and they get away with it," said Mahad Omar, Diriye's cousin and chairperson of the Somali Crisis Group.

According to Omar, Diriye was a gentle man who could be found watching soccer in his Bellville home when not at work.

"His mother was heartbroken to hear what had happened to him," he said, adding that neither Diriye's mother nor his wife nor children would have the opportunity to say goodbye.

Diriye was buried in the Habibia Soofie Cemetery in Johnson Road on Tuesday, in line with Muslim rites.

Grave diggers at the cemetery said that another Somali man had been killed in Gugulethu last week, but police could not confirm this at the time of going to press.

They said the man had been in South Africa for only three days.

Both Omar and Aden said they knew about their countryman's death.

"People need to realise that we have fled our war-torn country to come to South Africa for refuge," said Omar.

"The South African government has given us the platform to use our inborn business skills. We are registered as authentic asylum seekers because of our own war, but now this country is becoming like our home country,

"All we ask is that people remember Nelson Mandela's words - South Africa belongs to all who live in it," Aden added.

Police are screening CCTV footage of the murder in the hope that it will lead them to the other two suspects.

They are also tracing an abandoned car, believed to be the getaway vehicle, for information on their whereabouts.
• In a separate and unrelated incident, Kraaifontein police have arrested five men for allegedly conspiring to kill Somali shopkeepers.

The men, two of whom are local shopkeepers, were also charged with three counts of murder, two counts of arson and one count of conspiring to commit crimes.

Provincial police could not, at the time of going to press, say whether the intended victims were Somalis, nor could they elaborate on the charges.
• This article was originally published on page 6 of Cape Argus on June 30, 2010