A huge crowd of mourners pay tribute to Deah Barakat, Yusor Mohammed Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, gunned down in their apartment.
On a soccer field lent for the occasion by North Carolina State University, thousands gathered for the funeral of three Muslim students killed in a brutal attack on Tuesday. Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and her younger sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were killed in the couple’s apartment in Chapel Hill in what family members have called an “execution-style” hate-crime. Barakat, 23, and Yusor, 21, were newlyweds. Razan was 19 years old.
That the three were beloved by the community is clear. At least 3,000 people attended a candlelit vigil on Wednesday night, while officials confirmed that 5,500 people were at the funeral Thursday afternoon.
In an interview with the Guardian, Suzanne Barakat – Deah’s older sister – tearfully paid tribute to the three young victims. “Any time I saw them, they were happy,” she said, her voice wracked with grief. “They were inspiring. They all loved each other so much.”
Nouman Siddiqui, a family friend of the victims spoke to the crowd, saying that these were “heavy, heavy times”. He asked those present to pray for the victims and their families. Muammar Dahnoun, the imam of the mosque who was performing the funeral, led the crowd in afternoon prayers. Mohammad Abu-Salha, the father of the two young victims, then took the stage. “I’ve talked to police, I’ve talked to lawyers,” he said, his voice almost a shout, his body shaking slightly with emotion. “This has ‘hate-crime’ written all over it.”
The victims’ upstairs neighbor, Craig Hicks turned himself in on Wednesday, and has been charged in connection with the killings.
Al-Azhar, the centre of Islamic learning in Egypt, on Thursday condemned the killings of three young Muslims by a gunman in the United States as a “terrorist and racist” act. “Al-Azhar expresses its deep shock and concern at this cowardly terrorist act, which indicates that terrorism has no nationality or religion,” said a statement issued by the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, respected by Muslims around the world.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged U.S. President Barack Obama to take a firm stand against the death of three Muslims. Erdogan, delivering a speech at Mexico’s Matias Romero Institute on Thursday, called on President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry to condemn the murder in a statement. “An international fight against terrorism is a must,” the president stressed, “Both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are crimes against humanity.”
Local authorities stressed that they are probing all aspects of the “senseless and tragic act,” said Chris Blue of the Chapel Hill Police Department. “We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case,” he said. “Our thoughts are with the families and friends of these young people who lost their lives so needlessly.”
The killings prompted an outcry on Twitter — under the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter — over what many charged was anti-Muslim bias. The Council of American Islamic Relations also called on law enforcement authorities to find out if hate was a factor in the killings.
