Greater Manchester’s Mayor States He Will “Look Into” Shukri Abdi’s Case

Thousands of people have been calling for the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham to re-open Shukri Yahye-Abdi’s case after the Police ruled it out and dismissed the case as a ‘tragic incident’.

12 year-old Shukri Yahye-Abdi died in June of 2019, after drowning in River Irwell in Greater Manchester in the company of various classmates from her school. Shukri’s mother stated that Shukri couldn’t swim and was scared of the water.

An inquest looking into Shukri Abdi’s death revealed that one of her classmates has a known history of using racist language and was bullying Shukri at school. Another inquest found that ‘Child One’ who cannot be named for legal reasons, who was at the river with Shukri at the time, had confessed to killing Shukri before her death. It’s been stated that ‘Child One’ told her foster carer “if you don’t get in the water I’m going to kill you” but soon added it was done in a “laughing and joking manner”.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) opened an investigation on the Greater Manchester Police after receiving complaints that they has “failed to conduct an effective investigation and prematurely concluded that the death of Shukri Abdi was not suspicious”. The IOPC said they would examine the officer’s allegations stating that Shruki’s death wasn’t suspicious – and that her family was treated less favourably because of their ethnic background. The investigation ended earlier this year, and the results were shared with Shukri’s family and the Greater Manchester Police.

Since then, Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor has recieved over 6,000 emails asking for the case to be re-opened. A petition was recently launched in which 600,000 people had signed, speaking to BBC Asia, he stated; “It was a really sad case. I did look at it at the time and I could not see, and the police could not find, direct evidence that there was wrongdoing. Clearly, it is unresolved because of the nature of the level of concern. So what I can say… I will look into the case again and I will consider the call for a further investigation into it.”