Canada shooting victim dreamed of water for Guinea village

CONAKRY, Guinea – A Guinea man killed in this week’s shooting at a mosque in Canada was working to bring a steady supply of drinking water to his home village at the time of his death, relatives said Wednesday.

Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42, grew up outside Labe, Guinea’s second-largest city located hundreds of miles inland from the capital, Conakry. He studied in London before moving to Canada five years ago to work as an accountant, said an uncle, Alpha Barry.

On Sunday night, he was among six people killed in the attack on the Quebec Islamic Culture Centre. Another Guinean, Ibrahima Barry, was also among the dead. The two were not related.

French Canadian university student Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, has been charged with murder and attempted murder in the massacre that also wounded 19.

One Wednesday, relatives of Mamadou Barry who are based in Conakry were organizing a memorial ceremony of Qur’an readings, praise-singing and the ritual sacrifice of a cow.

Though Barry was due to be buried in Canada, the relatives said they wanted to honour a man who frequently sent financial and other aid home while caring for two children of his own in Canada.

A cousin, Mariame Barry, described him as kind and deeply religious. “He was always in the mosque here in Guinea, and God called him back while he was in a mosque in Canada,” she said.

Mamadou Barry’s death comes on the heels of an earlier family tragedy: Last year, his father died in a car accident while riding in a Jeep that Mamadou Barry had paid for.

The unfinished water project involved installing a 100-meter-deep well, said Alpha Barry, the uncle. “With his death, this dream of having drinking water is also broken,” he said.