R I C H M O N D H I L L’ S C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R S I N C E 1 8 7 8
The LIBERAL ■
$1 / 44 PAGES
Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015
yorkregion.com
■
905-881-3373
AvAnte, trust Without Compromise
905.780.9999 | www.avantemazda.ca
Kidnap victim launches court challenge By KIM Zarzour
COMMUNITY
kzarzour@yrmg.com
Honouring Terry Fox Tribute unveiling to Terry’s Marathon 35 years ago PAGES 3 & 6 SPORTS
Paddling to gold medal Richmond Hill’s Stewart earns U-16 national kayak title
PAGE 36
Steve Dennis survived a bullet wound and kidnapping on the Somali border, but his struggle is not over yet. The Richmond Hill man was shot in the leg three years ago during a dramatic armed abduction while working at a refugee camp on the Kenya- Somali border. Now, struggling to recover from his injury and diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dennis is taking the humanitarian group he was working for to court. Dennis says the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) failed to protect him before the incident and is failing to support him now as he deals with a trauma that changed his life. He hopes that his case — set to go to trial in Oslo Oct. 20 — will compensate him for losses and make aid workers, who continue to work in dangerous conditions, more safe. In a role reversal after years of offering help to others, he is now asking for help himself through a crowdsourcing campaign to raise funds for the legal challenge. Dennis, who has worked with groups such as Doctors Without Borders since 2002 in countries including Chad and Sudan, said his days as an aid worker are over. He is now living with his family in Richmond Hill, still deeply affected by the kidnapping, with continued health problems related to the gunshot and limited work options due to his PTSD. The harrowing ordeal took place June 29, 2012. Dennis had been working with the NRC providing food, water and shelter in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, which had swelled to almost half a million people after the famine of 2011. Suddenly, a group of kidnappers swarmed their convoy, firing shots and shouting in Somali. In the spray of bullets, their Kenyan driver, Abdi Ali, was shot and killed. Others were wounded including Dennis,
shot in the leg. Dennis and three other aid workers were marched across the border into Somalia, moving at night, hiding by day. The ordeal ended in another violent gunfight early in the morning of their fourth day in captivity, when a pro-government Somali group made a bold rescue that killed one kidnapper. Dennis has declined interviews until after the trial, but his father, Peter Dennis, said he and his wife, Carol-Ann, plan to be at Steve’s side in Oslo when the case goes to trial Oct. 20 to 27. “He is doing the right thing and we’re sup-
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
0 84 %
SAVOUR
SUMMER?
FAST - FORWARD TO OR
FALL?
FOR
See MANY, page 31.
Richmond Hill aid worker Steve Dennis, seen here in South Sudan, was shot and kidnapped in 2012, but rescued after four harrowing days. He’s now crowdfunding for a court battle in Norway against the aid organization he said didn’t do enough to keep him safe.
Canada Wide ClearanCe DO YOU...
porting him the best we can,” Peter said. The parents had concerns about safety when they first learned their son would be stationed at the Kenyan-Somali border, but assumed the humanitarian organization was doing its best to keep workers safe. “We didn’t feel all that great knowing where he was going, but we knew it was his life and he should be able to pursue what he wanted,” Peter said. “I thought they had everything reasonably in place. Steve had been working for years with Doctors Without Borders. They were not
This Weekend
MONTHS
We’ve got the Model Year Selldown with Canada Wide Clearance
10675 YONGE ST, RICHMOND HILL, JUST SOUTH OF ELGIN MILLS | 905-884-0991 | WILSONNIBLETT.COM