See in the video: Muslimophobia? Horror at knife attack on six-year-old and his mother.
Little Wadea was only six years old. The boy, who lived with his parents around 60 kilometers southwest of Chicago, was stabbed. The police arrested the family’s landlord as the suspected perpetrator.
According to investigators, the 71-year-old attacked the child and his mother with a knife on Saturday because they were Muslims and because of the ongoing Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestinians. He stabbed the child 26 times, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Residents reacted in horror. “Twenty-six times, how can you do that to a little boy?” The boy’s mother was taken to the hospital with more than a dozen stab wounds.
According to Ahmed Reha, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago, the mother managed to call the police. “He tried to choke her and said, ‘You Muslims have to die’ and tried to stab her. She went into the bathroom and called 911. In her own words, it all happened within seconds. When she came out, she was up “Her son has already been stabbed 26 times.” The council called for an end to “Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Palestinian racism” spread by politicians, media and social media.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of possible acts of violence at a police conference and urged people to remain vigilant in an “intensified environment.” US President Joe Biden expressed his condolences to the boy’s family: “This terrible act of hate has no place in America and is contrary to our core values,” the US President said in a statement. Hate crime charges were brought against the alleged perpetrator.