African Americans used to feel this way too
Slaying leaves Eritreans at a loss
Promising student's unsolved killing on the West Side leaves a void in the community of African immigrants
By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter
October 19, 2003
As he sat in the parked car on an August night talking with friends in the faint glow of the dome light, a promising future was laid out before 19-year-old Filmon Tesfai.
It was a future that shone all the brighter given his past. As a baby, he was a refugee in Sudan who fled war in Eritrea with his parents. Now he was a high school graduate headed for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a scholarship.
When a navy blue Chevrolet Caprice pulled up next to his car on Chicago's West Side, Tesfai nodded hello. The passengers stared, then fired. Nine shots later, Tesfai collapsed into a friend's lap. He was pronounced dead within half an hour.
The Aug. 18 slaying--still unsolved--devastated not only Tesfai's family, but an entire immigrant community.
Just as Tesfai's parents imagined their children would pursue education and prosper in the United States, the Eritreans of Chicago pin much of their hope on their youth--the first generation to go to college.
Last month, the community held a town meeting at Truman College on the North Side, where many Eritreans live, to ask police not to abandon the search for Tesfai's killers. Another month went by before the family gathered for a wedding. His parents hid and cried so as not to upset the bride and groom. On Friday, his mother, Maaza Ogbasyen, finally returned to work.
"It's getting worse," said Tesfai's father, Zerai. "My son died. The killers are still alive. If they arrested them it would be a good thing for me."
Anghesom Atsbaha, a history professor at Truman and a leader in the Eritrean community, said an arrest would bring closure.
"This community has always been one of the most loyal to the law of the land," he said. "This is not going to be another number, another statistic. ... Our criminal justice system's responsibility is to restore hope."
