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Residents in Saddle Ridge are grieving after a five-year-old boy, identified by a family friend as Raheel Uddin, died after being pulled from a retention pond in the northeast.

Emergency crews were notified a child was missing in community of Saddle Ridge near 88th Avenue and 60th Street N.E. around 4:30 p.m. Friday.

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Police confirmed Saturday that Uddin died some time after being pulled form the water.

Saima Jamal, co-founder of the Syrian Refugee Support Group, said Uddin and his family came to Canada from Bangladesh and reached out to the support centre about three years ago.

Jamal said the boy had autism and an attraction to water.

“He didn’t speak, he had seizures, he had a whole bunch of different things,” Jamal said Saturday, adding Uddin’s mother Rozina Mina had “to 24-7 keep an eye on him.”

Jamal said Mina recently quit her job as a paralegal two years ago so she could look after Uddin full time. Many members of the family were home when Uddin went missing, Jamal said, adding the family believes the young boy may have snuck out a back door before heading down to the retention pond.