Guyanese in US army killed in Iraq
-accidentally shot by colleague cleaning gun
Stabroek News
May 21, 2003
A 22-year-old Guyanese serving with the US army in Iraq was killed on Sunday when another soldier's gun discharged, according to official reports.
Specialist Rasheed Sahib, died from a bullet wound to his chest in the town of Balad, north west of Baghdad, according to The Associated Press. AP said that the gun discharged when it was being cleaned by a fellow soldier whose name was not disclosed and that the incident was under investigation.
According to an article in the New York Times, Sahib, a native of Guyana who immigrated to Brooklyn with his mother when he was three, enlisted in the Army in 2001 immediately after graduating from Franklin K. Lane High School.
More than 30 family members gathered on Monday at the home of his mother in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Nazreen Ashraf, one of Sahib's aunts said an officer had visited the Bushwick home on Sunday to deliver the news of Rasheed's death, and that the officer "was so apologetic he was in tears." Sahib had enlisted in hopes of attending college and eventually joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation, family members said.
"He knew what he wanted to do," said another aunt, Niza Ashraf. "He wanted to be in the FBI when it was over."
The article stated that Sahib was assigned to the 20th Field Artillery, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas, and he had been scheduled to be discharged from the Army in February. Instead, with his regiment preparing for duty in Iraq, he re-enlisted.
On Monday night family members filled the first floor of the row house on Woodbine Street in Bushwick where Sahib grew up. He had moved to Brooklyn from Guyana with his mother soon after the death of his father who was killed by a drunken driver, members of the family said.
Nazreen Ashraf said the military had informed Sahib's mother that his body would not be returned to Brooklyn for four days, an interval that upset several family members. Because they are Muslims, she said, their faith requires a speedy burial, preferably within two days.
An article in the New York Daily News reported that family members were demanding answers about the killing saying they did not fully accept the official account. "Don't you have to take out the bullets to clean a gun?" asked Sahib's stepfather, Seenarine Jonathan, 47. "I don't understand it. I can't buy it."
"We're very confused," said Omar Permaul, 25, Sahib's best friend. "We want a full investigation."
His grieving mother, Fizoon Ashraf, dissolved in tears when she tried to talk about her son.
A New York Post article quoted his mother as saying, "My hero is gone. Nothing can bring him back to me." She added that his nickname was "Smiley because he never got mad at anyone."
Permaul said barbecuing was Sahib's passion. "Not even the rain would stop him. He would stand there holding an umbrella."
