ANKARA

- A group of Turkish youths stabbed a Syrian youth to death in the southern state of Hatay on Saturday evening, while the authorities later announced that they had arrested the attackers.

While the incident sparked outrage in the Turkish street, officials, parliamentarians and human rights activists expressed their condemnation of the incident, which they described as racist.

The crime took place while Faris Al-Ali (17 years) was leaving a football field in the town of Narlija, near the city of Antioch.

While it was not clear from the beginning of the identity of the attackers and their purpose, identical sources later confirmed, quoting the family of the murdered young man, that some of the members of the group who attacked and killed him were the children of a Turkish woman whom Al-Ali found in his new workplace.

The Syrian activist residing in Turkey, Muhammad Sarhil, said, quoting the family of the murdered young man, that "Fares started working three days before the accident in a food factory (...) and on the third day of the new work, Faris collided with one of the Turkish workers," so he apologized to her and the matter passed. Peacefully," according to the family.

And he added in a post on his Facebook page, "The day after this incident, 6 young Turkish men came to him, asked him for his name and verified that he was the young man who collided with the worker, after which they took him away from the surveillance cameras and stabbed him, which led to his death directly."

The state of Hatay issued a written statement - today, Sunday - confirming the arrest of "the perpetrators" in the incident "within a short period of time", and the statement explained that "they were taken to the judicial authorities."

Activist Sarhil quoted Al-Ali's family as confirming that the authorities arrested the 16-year-old killer along with two other young men who participated in the crime.

“Irkçılık ideolojik bir düşünce değil, aksine psikolojik bir hastalıktır.”

~Malcolm X~

Tıp fakültesini kazanan Suriyeli bir yetim olan 17 yaşındaki Muhammed Al Ali, Ümit Özdağ ve benzerlerinin ırkçı söylemlerle azmettirdiği cani tipler tarafından bıçaklanarak öldürdü.

pic.twitter.com/KHJXv2VKMs

— Özlem Doğan (@ozlemdogan_) September 4, 2022

The Syrian young man, Fares Al-Ali, who hails from a village in Ariha in the Syrian province of Idlib, had taken refuge with his family in Turkey about 9 years ago, after his father was killed during the war in Syria.

Al-Ali managed to get a place to study medicine at the university.

While the head of IHH, Bulent Yildirim, visited Fares' family, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu called the family to express his condolences.

Yildirim and the Commission, in two separate statements on Twitter, strongly condemned the "attack" that killed Fares, recalling that he was "one of our Syrian orphans." in the College of Medicine.

While the incident did not receive wide coverage in the Turkish media, the Twitter platform witnessed an interaction from the tweeters, some of whom were members of parliament. Most of the participants blamed politicians who fueled racism and xenophobia, and singled out the famous right-wing politician Umit Ozdag, who is known for his anti-Syrians.

"Suriyeli yetim Faris Muhammed el-Ali, Hatay'da uğradığı bıçaklı saldırı sonucu hayatını kaybetti. Faris bu yıl tıp fakültesini kazanmıştı."

Menfur saldırıyı kınıyor, Kardeşimize Allah'tan rahmet, yakınlarına sabırlar diliyorum.

pic.twitter.com/lL5OC5Zj6i

— Muhammet Müfit Aydın (@MufitAydin16) September 4, 2022

Some of the tweeters interacted with the incident under the label "Faculty of Medicine", in reference to the academic specialization that young Faris Al-Ali was able to obtain despite being an orphan.

"I condemn this hateful attack, and I pray for mercy for our brother and patience for his relatives," the deputy of the Justice and Development Party from Bursa state and deputy head of the Parliament's Environment Committee, Mehmet Mufid Aydin, wrote on his Twitter account.

As for the representative of the Peoples' Democratic Party from Kocaeli, Omer Faruk Gargarlioglu, he condemned the incident, saying, "It is feelings of hatred and devaluation of others, and once again a Syrian is being killed." He added, "He was an orphan who studied medicine at the age of 17." .

Değersiz görme, nefret duyguları ve yine bir Suriyeli katledildi..!

17 yaşında ve Tıp Fakültesini kazanmış bir yetimdi.

Allah, ırkçıları ve ayrımcıları ıslah etsin.

https://t.co/yArscKivMD

— Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu (@gergerliogluof) September 4, 2022

For its part, Turkish journalist Ozlem Dogan blamed "Ozdag and his ilk" for the killing of Faris al-Ali.

While she cited Malcolm X's saying, "Racism is not an ideological idea, rather it is a mental illness," she saw that "Fares Al-Ali was stabbed to death by killers inspired by Umit Ozdag's racist sayings and his likes."

I received a tweet from the consultant in immigration and social services, Cetin Aldemir, in which he revealed that Fares had received advice from him;

A wide interaction, as it received more than 8,000 likes, and more than 1,300 retweets.

In his tweet, Aldemir said that the Syrian young man "had dreams. Today I received the news of his death as a result of a despicable attack."