Ahmed Isse, a former Somali government official, came to the United States in 1991 as a refugee from the Somali Civil War. He settled in south Seattle, with a daughter living in Tacoma and a son in Vancouver, BC. Isse had left other relatives behind, including a son in a Mombasa, Kenya, and at least one sister in Somalia.

In late December 1992, having not heard from his sister for several months, Isse went to the American Red Cross headquarters in Seattle to view news photographs of women at a refugee camp in Mombasa, taken a few days earlier by a photographer from Channel 11. After quietly viewing several images, Isse gasped upon recoginzing his sister, Fadumo Isse, smiling slightly in one of the camp photos.

This photo shows Ahmed Isse looking at a photo of a woman, perhaps his sister, and two children on a TV monitor at Red Cross headquarters. After he identified his sister, the Seattle Red Cross sent Fadumo Isse's name to the national headquarters, in hopes that the International Red Cross could put the siblings into contact.

Caption information source: Somali refugee spots his sster on TV, Seattle Post-Intellignecer, December 29, 1992, p. B2