The six-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed as many as 26 times by his landlord in what US President Joe Biden described as a “horrific act of hate”, in Illinois, allegedly in response to the deadly war between Israel and Hamas.
The Will County sheriff’s office said his 32-year-old mother was also wounded but is expected to survive.
What know about US Muslim boy’s murder in Illinois
While authorities did not immediately release the names of the two victims, the boy’s paternal uncle, Yousef Hannon, spoke at a news conference on Sunday hosted by the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
There the boy was identified as Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy who recently had turned 6, and his mother as Hanaan Shahin. The organization identified the other victim as the boy’s mother.
The family “came to America seeking what we all seek—a refuge to live, learn, and pray in peace,” according to the White House.
The 71-year-old accused, Joseph Czuba, stabbed the boy with a military-style knife with a 7-inch (18-cm) serrated blade, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
A serrated military-style knife with a seven-inch blade was pulled from the boy’s abdomen during the autopsy, the statement added. Authorities said the woman managed to call 911 as she fought off the landlord.
When police arrived, they found Czuba sitting near the residence’s driveway with a laceration on his forehead. He was taken to hospital for treatment before being charged with murder, attempted murder, and two counts of hate crimes.
“He knocked on the door and attempted to choke her, and said, ‘you Muslims’ must die,” Ahmed Rehab, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Chicago office, told reporters, citing text messages sent by the woman to the murdered boy’s father from her hospital bed.
Wadea had celebrated his birthday recently before his death, Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago’s executive director, said in a news conference. “He was a 6-year-old boy, he loved everything,” Rehab said of the child, recalling how Wadea’s father had described him.
Wadea’s mother and father had moved to the United States 12 and nine years ago, respectively, and their son was born here, Rehab added. They were from a village in the West Bank, he said.
Biden, in a statement late Sunday, confirmed that the woman was the boy’s mother and said their “Palestinian Muslim family came to America seeking what we all seek — a refuge to live, learn, and pray in peace.”
“This horrific act of hate has no place in America and stands against our fundamental values,” added Biden, calling for Americans to “come together and reject Islamaphobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred.”
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