The Uncle of one of the three Palestinian students shot in the US state of Vermont this weekend said, on Monday, that his nephew had fled violence in the Occupied West Bank, believing that he would be safe in the US, Anadolu Agency reports.
Speaking at a press conference, along with Burlington Mayor, Miro Weinberger, Police Chief Jon Murad and Hisham Awartani’s uncle, Rich Price, Kinnan Abdalhamid’s uncle, Radi Tamimi, said they are “still in shock” over the shooting of the three students as they were speaking Arabic, and were wearing keffiyehs.
The three students who were shot Saturday evening have been identified as Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University; Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College and Tahseen Ahmad, a student at Trinity College. All are 20 years old.
Rich Price, the uncle of Hisham Awartani, said the shooting happened after the three Palestinian students attended a birthday party for his 8-year-old twins.
“We had just come home and they were walking around the block and this is when this happened,” he said.
Stating that he moved to the US 15 years ago, he said he could have never imagined that this sort of thing could happen.
Noting that the shooting happened as his sister, who lives in the Occupied West Bank, had come to the US to stay with them for Thanksgiving, he said “tragic irony is not even the right phrase”.
Source : MEMO