{"id":1002,"date":"2019-03-27T03:28:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2019-03-27T03:28:05","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:28:05","slug":"friends-and-family-of-pakistani-teen-killed-in-texas-school-shooting-ask-for-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=1002","title":{"rendered":"Friends And Family Of Pakistani Teen Killed In Texas School Shooting Ask For Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas city of Santa Fe was stunned<\/span> by a school shooting on May 18 that took 10 lives and injured over a dozen people. One of the fatalities was\u00a017-year-old Sabika Sheikh, an exchange student\u00a0who was part of a U.S. government-funded educational program.<\/p>\n

Abdul Aziz Sheikh, Sabika\u2019s father, was breaking his Ramadan fast thousands of miles away in Pakistan when he learned about the shooting on CNN.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started calling my daughter right away; she didn\u2019t pick up the phone. I kept calling. Messaged her on WhatsApp \u2014 she doesn\u2019t pick up … This never happens,\u201d Sheikh tells GOOD.<\/p>\n

On May 23 at Sabika\u2019s funeral in Karachi, Sheikh\u2019s\u00a0shoulder became a warm pillow as people hugged him, often crying. Thousands showed up to mourn\u00a0her death and share their love with the family, including friends, cousins, and strangers who had heard about it on the news.<\/p>\n

Sheikh says Sabika was one of the smartest members of her family. She wanted to be a diplomat and help peace efforts between U.S. and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

What kind of world is this when teenagers turn on other teenagers?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were expecting her return. Her ticket was ready; she was going to be with her family. We were confident Sabika [would] return,\u201d Sabika\u2019s uncle Abdul Jalil Sheikh tells GOOD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of world is this when teenagers turn on other teenagers? Who taught them all this? To shoot and kill teenagers\u00a0whom they should be befriending instead,\u201d Ahmed Ali, who went to Sabika\u2019s funeral in Karachi, tells GOOD. Ali, a father of two teenagers, says the teenage shooter was also a child whom he thinks was misled.<\/p>\n

After a few tears, Ali pauses and remarks, \u201cWhat a young age to lose one\u2019s innocence,\u201d referring to both the teenage victims of the shooting\u00a0and Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who confessed to the killings.<\/p>\n

Peace comes from understanding, seeing, experiencing, [and] diversity.<\/p>\n

The name \u201cSabika\u201d means \u201creliability\u201d or \u201ca bar of gold.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Her friends back in Pakistan, who were looking forward to hearing stories from her on her return in less than a month, are shocked. \u201cThe whole world just feels more dangerous now,\u201d says one of her friends who asked to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n

Sabika comes from a country where Islamic militants have shot students in schools\u00a0and where schools are often targets of terror attacks. For the Sheikh family, to pursue a dream to bring peace goes just that much deeper.<\/p>\n

Like many Pakistanis, Sabika\u2019s parents believed in sending their children to countries with high educational standards in order to bring back to Pakistan a better perspective of the world. \u201cPeace comes from understanding, seeing, experiencing, [and] diversity,\u201d her uncle says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a speech Sabika gave at a retreat for foreign exchange students in North Carolina in early 2018, she said she \u201cprayed every night to wake up to a world of peace.\u201d She wanted to effect positive change in her society, her friends tell GOOD. She also hoped to use her experience and knowledge gained in America to bring more humanity to Pakistanis\u2019 understanding of life in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Governments should protect all our children.<\/p>\n

Pakistanis who have lived through years of violence<\/span>\u00a0have long regarded America as a safe country, so school shootings in the U.S. have been shocking to many parents in Pakistan. Despite the risks, though, Sabika\u2019s family felt secure in Sabika studying abroad. Her uncle says they would have never imagined their own daughter being in the crosshairs of a school shooter.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in America, if terrorism is possible, it means we should do something about it. Not as one country, but as one people. Safety is uncertain to all of our lives,\u201d says Amber Naureen, a working mother in Karachi\u00a0who\u2019s been shaken by the rise in school shootings in the U.S. \u201cWe should not protect our own tribes but [also] protect each other from the what is clearly a psychological failure of societies. Governments should protect all our children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in America, if terrorism is possible, it means we should do something about it.<\/p>\n

Back in Santa Fe, a city of 13,000 residents,<\/span>\u00a0a traffic jam formed\u00a0as hundreds gathered to pay their respects to Sabika\u00a0at a local mosque.<\/p>\n

Jason Cogburn, her host father, attended the ceremony\u00a0and offered this sentiment: \u201cWhen she started Ramadan and started fasting, my family did that with her because we did things together. Because, really, the root of our issue is love.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Top and share image by Imran Ali\/AFP\/Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Texas city of Santa Fe was stunned by a school shooting on May 18 that took 10 lives and injured over a dozen people. One of the fatalities was\u00a017-year-old Sabika Sheikh, an exchange student\u00a0who was part of a U.S. government-funded educational program. Abdul Aziz Sheikh, Sabika\u2019s father, was breaking his Ramadan fast thousands of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}