TORONTO - The mass shooting of 25 people at a block party in the city's east end on Monday brought a disturbing feeling of deja-vu for Amiga Taylor.

Her younger brother, 11-year-old Ephraim Brown, was gunned down at a birthday barbecue on July 22, 2007, in the public housing building where their family lived in the city's northwest end.

"Again, at a barbecue. Again, on the weekend and again, it had to involve young people," she said.

"We're just so sad for the families that lost their loved ones."

The shooting left two people dead and 23 injured. Nahom Tsegazab, 19, was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm but police have not charged anyone in the two homicides.

Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of Brown's death. The family is holding a memorial basketball tournament, The Phoenix Classic, at Ryerson University's gymnasium, hoping to raise $7,000 for Ephraim's Place, so area children can play on basketball teams with minimal cost.

"Basketball was the one thing that made him happy and it's the one thing that makes a lot of kids happy in the inner-city," she said.

"We need to be able to put them in leagues... (When you have) practices, there isn't very much room left to do much else for you to do. But when you're bored... you're now vulnerable."

Among the star players who have travelled from the U.S. to be at the tournament is Junior Cadougan, 22, whose brother Shaquan was shot four times in his townhouse in the city's northwest end in 2005 when he was four years old.

"He's doing great. He's playing basketball," Cadougan spoke of his brother.

"It's tough. These days, anything could happen anywhere. And that's sad, for people having to watch where they go," he said.

"I wish that stuff would just clean up and one day, we could be a family and society and prevent violence."