Africa safer than Chicago? For one family with two of six kids killed in Chicago, yes.

I’m not a big Neil Diamond fan, but one song he’s got has resonated with me and many others for decades now.  “America”, or sometimes known as “Coming to America” was released in 1980, at the end of the disastrous Jimmy Carter presidency and by 1981 it was a number one hit.

A classic example is a family from Gambia, a tiny, third-world country in Africa. (H/t to Days of our Trailers)

The Chicago Sun-Times has a story today of how this family moved to Chicago for a better life about two decades ago.

Well, their kids made some poor choices and now two of them are dead this year and now the family is considering moving back to Gambia.

It’s pretty sad when Chicago is such a poor place for immigrants to seek the American dream that they consider moving back to a third-world country because it’s thought to be safer than living in America’s second-largest city.

After second in family killed, family may return to Africa

They came to the U.S. from Gambia — in search of a better life.

But two tough decades later, some of Kenwood Academy High School student Muhammed Kebbeh’s family say they are considering going back to Africa after he became the city’s 370th murder victim this year and second of his six siblings to be gunned down on the South Side in the last six months.

“I want to pack everything up and go back,” his oldest brother, Momadu Kebbeh, 36, said Wednesday, as his devoutly Muslim family mourned and prayed at their Washington Park home. “What’s the point of staying here?”

Muhammed, 19, was sitting with his girlfriend when he was shot dead by masked gunmen in a drive-by shooting in the 8100 block of South Ingleside shortly after 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Relatives say they had been especially worried about him ever since his 23-year-old brother Omar Kebbeh became Chicago’s 68th murder victim of 2012 back in February.

…Police sources say Muhammed was a member of the Gangster Disciples street gang and his brother said that was “probably” true.

…Mohammed, a quiet basketball and soccer lover, hung out on the corner at 71st and South East End with his pals and was staying with friends near where he was killed, his family said. He was the first member of his family to be born in the U.S. but was always conscious of his African roots, his family said.

Despite his problems, he sometimes still attended mosque with his mom, Mariana, and he had attended the first day of school at Kenwood on Tuesday just hours before he was killed, relatives said…

Police have not made arrests in either of the Kebbeh brothers’ murders.