In one of the worst sieges that Bangladesh has seen, 28 people were killed in a restaurant in Dhaka, 20 of who were foreign nationals.
19 year-old Tarishi Jain, an Indian girl, studying in UC Berkeley was among the victims of the attack. She was in Dhaka for an internship.
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Among the other victims were two students – Faraaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir – of Emory University in Atlanta, United States.
Kabir was studying in Emory’s Oxford College as a sophomore and was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh at the time of the attack.
Hossain was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta. He was a native of Dhaka.
We are honestly shocked. A lot of us are not ready to talk about it. But we were a family. It hit us hard. There are a lot of people very upset. We’re just trying to support each other through this.Kereisha Harrell, friend and fellow student.
Harrell, 20, said the two students were well-liked and were always willing to help.
They put everyone before themselves. They were both very intelligent. They never had any enemies. Anyone who met them fell in love with them. They were genuinely great people. It’s a serious loss for Emory and Oxford as a whole.
An Italian, Gianni Boschetti, survived the attack while his wife was among the nine Italians who were confirmed dead by the Italian Foreign Ministry. Boschetti was in the restaurant’s garden talking on the phone when the attack took place.
Among the other victims was Italian Cristian Rossi, who was supposed to be headed back to Italy on Thursday, but delayed his departure to sign business contracts.
Five-months pregnant Simonta Monti too was supposed to head back to Italy for a medical check-up, said her brother. She was going to name her son Michelangelo.
Seven Japanese nationals also lost their lives in the siege, and one survived with injuries. The Japanese government is planning to send a plane to Bangladesh on Sunday evening to bring family members of the victims.
All eight victims were working for three Tokyo-based consulting firms on a Japanese government-funded infrastructure project. They were dining together at the restaurant.
The father of one of the victims, Komakichi Okamura, spoke about the death of his 32-year-old son Makoto Okamura to Japanese media on Sunday morning.
“This is something unbearable as a parent,” said Okamura. He said he told his son to be careful before he left. “That was the last conversation I had with him on the telephone,” said the father.
(With inputs from AP.)
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