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DAILYWILDCAT.COM Wednesday, April 26, 2017– Thursday, April 27, 2017 VOLUME 110 ISSUE 86
NEWS | PAGE 2
LOOK OUT! TEAMS FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE TEST SOFTWARE FOR SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES IN COMPETITION
SPORTS | PAGE 16 ALMOST FIVE YEARS CANCER FREE, LEXE SELMANRICHARDS SHARES HER STORY
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ABDIRAHMAN CHIRANGO, A SOMALI refugee who has lived in Tucson for the last 12 years, poses for a portrait in the Environment and Natural Resources 2 building courtyard on April 25. Chirango graduated from the UA in 2014 with a degree in political science.
‘I don’t have a place in my heart for Somalia right now’ BY TORI TOM @DailyWildcat
When ethnic Bantus of Somalia faced genocide during the early ‘90s, 6-yearold Abdirahman Chirango escaped on foot across hundreds of miles to his country’s southwestern border. He remained in a congested refugee camp for more than a decade. Chirango fled to Kenya in 1991 with his maternal grandmother, two aunts, younger sister, an uncle who carried his infant brother and
Abdirahman Chirango escaped violence and lived in a squalid refugee camp for over a decade before reaching the U.S. fellow Bantu villagers in search of security amidst Somalia’s raging inter-tribal wars. Families were forced to abandon their livelihoods because of imminent terrorization from militants who, according to Chirango, plotted to massacre his people if they stayed. As a boy, he helplessly
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witnessed the murder of his mother for resisting rape and the branding of his uncle and grandmother for protecting her. Chirango numbly watched as flames engulfed their house. “I can still see my young brother sitting next to the lifeless body of my mom, suckling her breast,” he recalled, “[and] my sister splashing in the
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blood of my mother.” Following brief hesitation, Chirango continued his recollection, his 6-foot2 frame tensing in a tidy, vintage, gray suit. “Up to today, I can still smell the smell of burning homes,” he said. As a minority group, Somali Bantus faced vehement persecution by majority clans with Arab roots as a result of their alleged inferiority. Their origin of ancestry comes from countries near the eastern ridge of Africa. Experts say Somali
CHIRANGO, 3
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