On Tuesday 5th January, the family of a 12-year-old refugee schoolgirl who drowned in a river sued the police force which investigated her death, claiming institutional racism.
Shukri Abdi first arrived in the UK in January 2017 and was found in the River Irwell in Bury, Greater Manchester on 27 June 2019. A group of children were with her at the river in the period before she died. In December 2020 a coroner concluded that Shukri died by drowning and that it was an accident. Joanne Kearsley, senior coroner for Manchester North, concluded that there was no evidence that the first child had any intention to kill Shukri. She also rejected claims that anyone had pushed Shukri into the water.
The solicitors have lodged a civil action for breach of the Human Rights Act against Greater Manchester police on behalf of Shukri’s mother, Zamzam Arab Ture. The lawyers argue that police should have investigated more thoroughly before deciding the drowning was an accident because the incident involved a child who could not swim, who had never been to a river before, had for the first time in her life not come home from school and was with children she had never before been with after school.
They add that institutional racism played a part in the way the case was investigated because Shukri came from a family of black, Muslim refugees.
