On Sunday, an attack on a mosque in Quebec resulted in six fatalities, and new details about the victims are beginning to surface in the Canadian press. The suspect, Canadian Alexandre Bissonnette, has reportedly been identified as a white nationalist, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to the incident by identifying it as a “terrorist attack on Muslims.”
Here are the victims:
Ibrahima Barry, 39, a father of four, was one of the six victims. Barry’s friend, Moussa Sangare, told the Toronto Sun, Barry was a “dedicated family man who was always with his children.” Barry worked in information technology at the health insurance board of Quebec.
Ibrahima Barry (Photo via Moussa Sangare)
Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42, Ibrahima Barry’s cousin, worked in Quebec to support his family in Africa. Both Ibrahima and Mamadou Tanou were attending a Qur’an reading with their children.
Mamadou Tanou Barry (Photo via Moussa Sangare)
Azzeddine Soufiane, 57, another father, was a grocer and butcher, at among the most prominent grocery stores in the local Muslim community, a family friend told the Toronto Sun.
Azzeddine Soufiane (Photo via Faebook)
Khaled Belkacemi, 60, was a professor at the Universite Laval’s food science department and a father of three.
Khaled Belkacemi (Photo via Universite Laval)
Abdelkrim Hassane, 41, was the final victim of Sunday’s attack. A father of three, Hassane worked in information technology for the government and that he was a father with three daughters and a wife.
Abdelkrim Hassane (Photo via Facebook)
Aboubaker Thabti, 44, was born in Tunisia and worked in a pharmacy. He was married with two young children.
Aboubaker Thabti
“Our university community is in mourning today,” the Universite Laval’s rector Denis Briere said in a statement. “We mourn the death of an esteemed member of the faculty and the university, a devoted and beloved man of his colleagues and students.”
Sunday’s attack reflected the impact of prejudice and Islamophobia that subjects Muslim communities to hate crimes due to harmful, stereotypical portrayals of them as terrorists. There is no shortage of violent crime committed by white males, but white communities are not subjected to the same stigma and stereotyping as marginalized people who are forced to represent their communities.
As Sunday’s attack demonstrates, the consequences of this stereotyping can sometimes be fatal.
