A Kenyan father is yet to come to terms with the death of her daughter killed in Syria while fighting for ISIS.
Yusuf Abdi Noor, 50, is still agonizing the death of his daughter Shamisa Noor. Shamisa was killed in December 2016 in Syria
The Moi Girls’ Isinya alumni who was then just aged 25 was offered a scholarship to study at the Africa International University, Khartoum to pursue a Bachelor Degree in Medicine.
Her father, a retired Imam and a businessman had high hopes of her daughter scaling the heights of education and bettering the lives of her five other siblings.
But in her last visit to their Kitengela home, Yusuf says Shamisa had greatly changed but could not understand why she changed.
“She discouraged us watching television and also disconnected internet connection in the house citing that internet was the source of immorality in the society,” he said according to the Star.
But her parents thought it was just a phase in life and they let it pass. During her final exam, she called home and requested for USD615 (about Sh61,434) to cater for her shopping and air ticket back home.
Yusuf sent the money through Dahabshil as was the norm and waited for her to return home by end of October 2016. But by mid-November she was not home yet, still in Khartoum claiming she was waiting for her certificate at school and would return as soon as she got it.
Days later, he got a call from a man identifying himself as Osman who claimed to be schooling with Shamisa.
“He said that he was calling to inform me that my daughter wasn’t at the school but gave me contacts of two female students based in Nairobi who would know about her whereabouts.
“I found this to be awkward, but it was the only communication I was receiving in regards to my daughter and so I opted to listen,” Yusuf said.
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Bumpy times followed as Yusuf flew to Sudan in search of his daughter but it was futile. He only found her Kenyan passport and few of her clothes at her hostel in Khartoum. He came back a dejected father.
He resigned to fate. In mid-December 2016, Shamisa’s mother received a call from an unknown number that reflected ‘Syria’ on TrueCaller but she did not pick it out of fear. Yusuf called back the number later and the voice on the other end was her daughter’s.
“I was overwhelmed with emotions at the sound of her voice, she was calling out hooyohooyo (Somali name for mum). Before I could even ask anything, she proceeded to say that she was okay but she wasn’t coming back home. I asked her why and she confidently said that she had gone for her Jihad,” Yusuf told the Star further.
She kept contact but only her mother picked her calls. Then she stopped and when she called, she told her mother she had been busty treating fighters.
Shamisa also told her mother that if anything happened to her, Abdi, their third born documented by ISIS as next of kin would be notified.
Then in February, Abdi received a telegram stating Shamisa is now a martyr meaning she had been killed during a US airstrike that hit their compound.
Investigations by police through her mother revealed that Shamisa was recruited by a staff at the University in Khartoum.
Her two friends-Zahra and Faiza who came back to Kenya were also supposed to join her but they could not because they did not have Sudanese passports.
They are now interns and Kenyatta National Hospital and are under close watch by the authorities.
Yusuf regrets securing Shamisa the scholarship saying what happened, maybe, could have been averted.
“If she never left, maybe none of these would have happened.”
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