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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

US grieves after 19 children killed

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UVALDE: A tight-knit Latino community in Texas was wracked with grief on Wednesday after a teen in body armour marched into an elementary school and killed 19 small children and two teachers, in the latest spasm of deadly gun violence in America.


Details of the atrocity, the victims and the 18-year-old suspect — who was killed by police — emerged as America grappled with its deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook tragedy in Connecticut a decade ago.


“This town is heartbroken, devastated,” said Adolfo Hernandez, whose nephew was at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, a small community about an hour from the Mexican border, during the Tuesday shooting.


“We feel like there’s a black cloud above this town,” he said. “You just want to pinch yourself and wake up from that horrible nightmare.”


Grief-stricken and angry, President Joe Biden addressed the nation in the hours after the attack, with a call on lawmakers to take on America’s powerful gun lobby and enact tougher laws to curb gun violence.


“When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” Biden asked, his voice slow and heavy with emotion.


In Uvalde, police had blocked off the area around the school on Wednesday and there was little traffic or pedestrian movement. The neighbourhood is one of modest single story homes, with a small yard and often a swing set and an outdoor grill for barbecues.


Identified as Salvador Ramos, the teen gunman was a resident of the town and a US citizen.


According to Texas Department of Public Safety officials, Ramos shot his grandmother before heading to Robb Elementary School around noon where he abandoned his vehicle and entered with a handgun and a rifle, wearing body armour.


Details have emerged of the suspect as a deeply troubled teen -- he was repeatedly bullied over a speech impediment that included a stutter and a lisp and once cut up his own face “just for fun,” a former friend of Ramos, Santos Valdez, told The Washington Post.


Valdez said he used to be close to Ramos but not since the latter had begun to “deteriorate.” Ramos killed all 21 people in one classroom, CNN and other news outlets reported. As shattered families shared the news on social media, the names of the murdered children, most of them of Latino heritage, began coming out: Ellie Garcia, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, Uziyah Garcia...“My little love is now flying high with the angels above,” Angel Garza, whose daughter Amerie Jo Garza had just celebrated her 10th birthday, posted on Facebook.


“I love you Amerie jo,” he wrote. “I will never be happy or complete again.” More than a dozen children were also wounded in the attack at the school, which teaches more than 500 students aged around seven to 10 years old, mostly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged. The gunman was killed by responding officers, the officials said, adding later two teachers also died in the attack. Fourth-grade teacher Eva Mireles was shot and killed while trying to protect her students, her aunt Lydia Martinez Delgado told the New York Times. She said Mireles was proud of teaching kids of Latino heritage.


A cousin of Mireles, Amber Ybarra, called her a hero.


“Her cooking was amazing. Her laughter was contagious, and she’s going to be missed,” Ybarra told NBC’s “Today” show. “She put her heart into everything that she did.” — AFP


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