The families of three Palestinian students attending US colleges who were shot on Saturday in Vermont called on US officials to investigate the incident as a hate crime, as they awaited updates on their children’s recovery on Sunday.
Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University in Rhode Island; Kinnan Abdel Hamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania; and Tahseen Ahmed, who attends Trinity College in Connecticut, were all shot near the University of Vermont on Saturday night and were being treated for injuries of varying severity on Sunday, according to police.
Burlington police have not identified or apprehended a shooter, and have not commented on a possible motive. A spokesperson could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
“We call on law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime. We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice,” the families of the students said on Sunday in a statement circulated by the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian non-profit organisation.
The shooting comes as the US is witnessing a surge in Islamophobic and antisemitic incidents, including violent assaults and online harassment, since the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted on October 7.
The students had been speaking Arabic and wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, the Palestinian foreign ministry said on Sunday, calling on US authorities to hold those responsible to account.
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The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a US-based advocacy organisation, also called on state and federal police to investigate the shooting as a hate crime in a statement on Sunday.
“The surge in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment we are experiencing is unprecedented, and this is another example of that hate turning violent,” ADC National Executive Director Abed Ayoub said.
Burlington Police issued a press release saying that officers had responded to calls of shots fired on Saturday night and found two people injured at one location near the university campus and a third a short distance away.
Without identifying the victims, the police statement said the first two were treated at the scene and then taken to the University of Vermont Medical Centre by the fire department, and police brought the third to the same hospital.
In a Facebook post, Ramallah Friends School, a secondary school in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the three victims were graduates.
“We extend our thoughts and prayers to them and their families for a full recovery, especially considering the severity of injuries – as Hisham has been shot in the back, Tahseen in the chest, and Kinnan with minor injuries,” the Facebook post said.