Abdul Sharifu
Abdul Sharifu left his Buffalo home around noon Saturday in a blizzard to get milk and other supplies.
Sharifu, 26, never made it back. A cousin with whom he shared a house on Buffalo's East Side made a positive identification of Sharifu’s body at Oshei Women and Children's Hospital on Monday morning, according to relatives of Sharifu.
An Erie County spokesman confirmed that Sharifu was found dead outside in the 14212 ZIP code at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“We don’t know what happened to him. We know that he told his wife he was going to buy milk,” said Mohammed Omar, Sharifu's younger brother.
Enock Rushikana said Sharifu's wife, who is pregnant and due to give birth in about a week, advised him not to go out during the storm.
Sharifu went anyway. Rushikana said Sharifu was known in the neighborhood to help anyone who needed it, and perhaps someone in need had called him on Saturday.
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"It was in his nature to help," said Rushikana. "No matter what the situation."
William Clay hasn’t been seen alive or heard from since he talked with his sister Sophia late Friday night, but family members are “totally certain” that he is the man whose body was found in the snow near Kensington and Bailey avenues early Saturday.
"He was a good young man, a reliable young man for everyone in the community," Rushikana added.
Ali Sharifu said his cousin "was so excited to become a father" and was working toward buying a home for his growing family.
Abdul Sharifu's car was found Sunday in the middle of the road on Utica Street, near Main Street, said Ali Sharifu, who identified his cousin at the hospital around noon on Monday.
"They told me some people found him in the street and he was already dead," said Ali Sharifu, who lived with Abdul.
Concerned relatives posted Sharifu’s picture on Facebook earlier Sunday and asked for the public’s help in finding him, after Sharifu didn’t respond to calls and texts from his wife, who was sleeping at the time Sharifu left the house, according to relatives.
Omar said he got a call from someone saying that he might have seen Sharifu walking, but the man wasn’t certain.
As Western New York continues to respond in the storm's aftermath, officials also are still urging residents to stay off the roads in certain hard-hit communities.
Omar and Sharifu are refugees from Congo who were resettled in the United States after living for years in a refugee camp in Burundi.
Sharifu arrived in the U.S. about five years ago, according to relatives, while Omar, 21, came in 2019 and was resettled in Lansing, Mich.
Sharifu worked at a manufacturing company in Cheektowaga and was set to become a father for the first time within a matter of days.
Sharifu and Omar ended up in a refugee camp in Burundi in 2002 after their parents were killed in the Second Congo War, said Omar.
Omar said he and his brother had recently chatted about living closer to each other, although Sharifu often told Omar he loved Buffalo and didn’t want to leave.
“Last month, I told him to come Lansing. He said, ‘No, I can’t leave Buffalo,' ” said a tearful Omar. “Then he tried to tell me to move there, so then I told him I would think about it to move there to be close to him.”
Correction: The body of Abdul Sharifu, who was found dead Saturday in Buffalo after his car was found on Utica Street, was identified at Oishei Children's Hospital. Sharifu's name was misspelled and the details about the discovery of his car were incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
