2 weeks, 8 terror attacks, 247 victims: Humanising terror statistics

About half the 247 victims in the two weeks were killed alongside someone they knew


News Desk July 28, 2016
Coffin of a victim who was killed in a blast outside a public park on Sunday, during a funeral in Lahore, Pakistan, March 28, 2016. PHOTO: EPA

In just two weeks in March this year, 247 men, women and children became part of the terror statistic in attacks carried out at soft targets in six countries.

In an attempt to show these victims are not just another number and to address reader concerns that not all victims of terror are treated equally, The New York Times went to all these places to track each individual who lost his/her life and unearthed some heartbreaking stories.

Ordinary Pakistanis share defiant messages in wake of Lahore attack

Map: New York Times

There were two terror attacks in Pakistan in these two weeks: a suicide bomb attack in a park in Lahore that killed 76 people and a bus attack in Peshawar that killed 14.Other attacks around the world included those in Brussels, Turkey, Iraq, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

About half the 247 victims in the two weeks were killed alongside someone they knew. At the Lahore suicide bomb attack, 10 relatives were killed, including Faiz Ahmed Chandio, a clerk in the government’s irrigation department who loved to cook rice with chicken gravy, and three of his six children: Shiraz, 6; Samina, 5; and Sadaf, 5 months.

Map: New York Times

A Taliban splinter group claimed to be targeting Christians at the Lahore park but most of those killed there were Muslim — like Zubaida Amjad, 40, who knew the Holy Quran by heart and was teaching her 12-year-old daughter, Momina Amjad, to recite the verses. The girl was killed, too.

The 247 victims included Americans, Chinese, Congolese, French, Germans, Israelis, Lebanese, Macedonians, Peruvians, Polish — 26 nationalities in all. Most died less than 10 miles from where they lived. Eight couples were slain together while 44 of the victims under 18. There were 17 victims 10 or younger; and 27 aged 11 to 17.

What’s wrong, 2016?

New York Times

There were also Jews and Christians and atheists, and at least one Hindu, but 151 of the victims — 61 per cent — were Muslim like their killers. Further, there are 1,168 immediate surviving relatives: 211 people who had lost a parent, and 78 without a spouse. More than 100 victims, young and old, left behind parents.

Map: New York Times

The oldest victim was Sevinc Gokay, an 84-year-old retired civil servant who was killed in Ankara. The youngest were not even born: Two pregnant women were killed along with the babies they carried; a third, Songul Bektas, survived but lost her pregnancy in its third trimester. Her husband said that they learned only later that the fetus had been female, and that they would have named her Elif, Turkish for slim and tall.

The victims over these two weeks were musicians, scholars, teachers, waitresses, police officers, housewives, farmers, and students.

This article originally appeared on The New York Times.

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