Belfast knife attack victim loses eye, remains in coma
· Toronto Sun
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The victim of Monday’s barbaric knife attack in Belfast has lost his left eye and is in a coma, fighting for his life.
The victim, identified by authorities in Northern Ireland as 44-year-old Stephen Ogilvie, remains in critical condition in hospital with relatives by his bedside, reports The Telegraph .
Ogilvie, who is disabled and has schizophrenia, suffered knife wounds to his face, neck and back during the horrifying assault, which appeared to be an attempted beheading that was caught on video and shared online .
Police arrested the alleged attacker , 30-year-old Hadi Alodid, who they say is from Sudan. It is believed he travelled to Paris and then Dublin before taking a bus to Belfast, where he claimed asylum in February 2023.
Due to a loophole in British law, Alodid was granted permission to live and work in the United Kingdom the following September, reports say.
Accused of attempted murder
Alodid is accused of attempted murder, possessing a knife and threatening to kill a National Health Service radiographer earlier that day.
He appeared in court Wednesday and was remanded into custody after a judge denied bail, saying the “risks were far too great and unmanageable,” including the risk of reoffending, harming the public, fleeing and causing public disorder, the BBC reported .
The knifing triggered a violent response from some residents, as a group of masked rioters targeted immigrants in one neighbourhood, forcing multiple families to flee after fires were deliberately set at homes, a Middle Eastern supermarket and vehicles.
“Twenty-seven people were made homeless (Tuesday) night because people went door-to-door to try and target foreign nationals to burn them out of their homes. I can only imagine the terror,” said Baroness Ruth Anderson, a member of the House of Lords.
“A two-month-old is the youngest victim who had to be moved from her home and I don’t think any of us will ever be able to forget the image of a nine-year-old child and their family being put in the back of a Land Rover to be rescued from violent, racist thugs who were seeking to undermine them and to undermine their very sense of belonging in a country that many of them have lived in for decades.”
Attack halted by bystanders
The attack was finally halted by two bystanders who got out of a vehicle and intervened.
“I’d taken my son to hurling practice earlier that evening and so I’d got out of the car, gone to the boot (trunk) and grabbed his hurling stick,” Maitiu Mag Tighearnan, who also goes by Matt McKiernan, told The Daily Mail .
“Instinct took over and I ran over and I smashed this guy over the head with the hurling stick. Right on the flat side, about three times. As hard as I could.”
He said his friend Andre, who is trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, tried to subdue the attacker with an ankle hold.
“I hit this guy again, hard, but it didn’t seem to faze him,” McKiernan said. “He did stumble back, though, and dropped the knife. I think another man who’d been watching came in and kicked the knife away.
“We were trying to roll the attacker onto his stomach to subdue him, but he was struggling. The police then arrived and four officers took over before armed tactical support turned up.”
Fundraiser created to celebrate hero
After revealing himself as one of the men who helped stop the assault, an online fundraiser was created to honour the hero.
“Faced with unimaginable violence, he chose courage over fear and grabbed a hurley stick to defend his fellow Irish man,” wrote Niall Donnan , the organizer of the GoFundMe.
“I have set up this GoFundMe so the people of our land can show our support to Matt for his incredible bravery and courage,” he continued, adding that all donations will be sent to him directly so everyone can “buy him a pint!”
The fundraiser has collected more than £25,200 (C$47,000) from more than 2,500 donations as of Wednesday afternoon.
Donnan said in an update Wednesday that McKiernan is shocked by the amount raised and thanked the community for its support. He added that McKiernan would like to donate some of the money to the victim as well as to his friend who also stepped in.
“From a personal level, I want to thank everyone who donated to this fundraiser — it is just beautiful to see a community come together like this and for strangers to support one another,” Donnan wrote.