Muslim community members mobilize after Manchester terrorist attack

Manchester City: Following the Manchester terrorist attack in the United Kingdom, members of city’s Muslim community mobilized to help wherever and however they could.
It’s been said that tragedy brings out the best in human nature and the worst. Monday night’s bombing at the Manchester arena was indeed caused by the worst in human potential. The suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, sought to strike terror in the heart of his own city by launching an attack that resulted in the death of 22 people, including children, while  64 others sustained wounds, according to media reports.
And yet, on that night, and in the hours that followed, the light of humanity shone, perhaps most notably from Manchester’s Muslim community. Some, in the case of a vascular surgeon, simply did what they do every day, save lives. Others reacted instinctively, jumping in the heat of the moment to do what they could. A restaurant mobilized to feed first responders, and still, another organized a fundraising effort to help victims and their families. All of them did it because Manchester is their home. This was family.
Tawqeer Rashid, a vascular surgeon with the Manchester Royal said, “The injuries we saw were horrific.” “It hit home when I was removing the bolts from people. They were bigger than a 50p piece, not little bolts you use in your home enormous ones. This is a level of depravity I cannot understand: how a human being would be capable of planning this if they knew what it would do to another human being. These bolts ripped through bodies, into the stomach, the legs, severing arteries, severing nerves, smashing bones and damaging spinal cords.”
Finding himself in unfamiliar hospital territory, Rashid was struck by the sight of everyone rushing around to help. Somehow, everything got done, somehow it all got done right. “We operated through the night and staff brought us hot food and tea. Everyone was pulling together every shade of religion or none at all.”
On a normal day, taxi service owner, Sam Arshad, finishes his work and heads home for dinner and an evening with family. Monday, however, turned out to be no normal night. The owner of Street Cars was headed home when he drove passed the Manchester Arena and the obvious signs of the aftermath of something horrible. When a police officer explained what had happened, Arshad’s instincts took over, and he headed straight back to work. There, he mobilized his fleet of drivers to begin shuttling stranded concert goers to their homes, free of charge, Morocco World News reported.
“I had a bad feeling, span my car around and went back to the office. The phones were going crazy, with panicked parents and children who wanted to get out of there… The news had started coming in that there had been fatalities, so we got the gist of what was happening. We said we needed to pull together for the people of Manchester.”
Many other Muslims like Gilbran Awan, Zaffer Khan, Othman Moqbel mobilized to help wherever and however they could help.
SM/IINA