Student tells of moment he was stabbed at Brighton bus stop
By Tatiana Aversa Sanchez
A student has spoken about the moment he was stabbed in the face at a Brighton bus stop.
Fadel Ahmuda, a 27-year-old Libyan student, needed stitches to his face after the attack which happened as he waited for a bus opposite Lidl in Arundel Road, Brighton.
He said that he had been to the David Lloyd gym at Brighton Marina on the evening of the attack.
And that afterwards a friend had dropped him off to wait for the number 1 bus when he was stabbed.
He said: “I was talking on the phone with my father, who is in Libya, and two men were listening to me on the phone speaking in Arabic and they were making comments at me.
“I was worried about my belongings. I said goodbye to my father and turned around and the next thing I know is one of the guys came towards me swearing at me and then stabbed me.”
The two attackers then ran off leaving the victim alone and bleeding.
He stopped a passing car and asked for a lift to the hospital but said that the driver told him he was “in a rush, no”.
The victim was treated at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
He said: “I had to get the bus to the hospital even after the attack and when I arrived at the hospital it took them three hours to help me and to stop the pain and bleeding.
“I was in pain. My head hurt so much. The doctor who did the stitches came all the way from Eastbourne.
“For ten days I could not speak. I am still afraid to go out of the house. I have lived in many places and nothing like this has ever happened to me.”
He said that he didn’t want to live in Brighton any more.
He spoke out days after Sussex Police issued CCTV images of three people who were in the area at the time of the attack. It happened at about 10pm on Wednesday 2 October.
The man with the knife was described as white, about 25 years old, 6ft 1in tall and slim.
He was wearing a red t-shirt, dark jeans and a black baseball-style cap with his hair sticking out the back.
A second man was described as white, about 25 years old, 5ft 11in tall and slim. He had bad teeth and light brown hair that was shaved in a number one or number two cut.
He was wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and a blue hooded top.
Anyone with information is asked to phone Sussex Police on 101, email 101@sussex.pnn.police.uk or call the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
According to a report presented to the Brighton and Hove City Council Community Safety Forum: “The police recorded 96 racist and religiously motivated incidents and crimes in the first five months of 2013-14 compared with 80 in the same months of 2012-13.”
It was likely that the increase was a result of improved procedures for recording hate crimes, according to the report, which said: “Sussex Police have been undertaking staff training and other work to improve procedures for recording hate crimes and incidents on their crime/incident recording system.
“The police have been undertaking work to improve their identification and recording of hate incidents and this is likely to be the reason for the recent increases on numbers recorded.”
