Leila Geagea ‘doesn’t hate’ allegedly drunk driver Samuel Davidson
Hundreds of mourners united at the Oatlands crash site on Monday night in a massive outpouring of heartbreak and prayer for the four children killed, with the crowds spilling onto the street and blocking traffic as they sung hymns and recited the Lord’s Prayer.
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- Messages of support for the Oatlands crash families
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Hundreds of mourners united at the Oatlands crash site on Monday night in a massive outpouring of heartbreak and prayer for the four killed children.
Lakemba MP Jihad Dib and Fat Pizza actor Rob Shehadie were among the massive crowd.
Led by a priest, the mourners prayed the rosary and walked the stations of the cross along the road where the children were struck.
Mourners spilt over onto the street and blocked off traffic as they sung Christian hymns and recited the Lord’s Prayer only metres from where the children were killed.
“Thank you everyone,” the children’s families shouted before the crowd burst into applause.
A message had been sent out earlier in the day urging family and friends of the Abdallah family to attend.
“Personally requested by Leila, tonight we will be gathering … with the family to pray the rosary and do the stations of the cross,” the message read.
“In the name of their three beautiful children Antony, Angelina and Sienna as well as their dear cousin Veronique.
“May the power of prayer and our faith in god show some light and comfort to all those affected by this horrific tragedy.”
Earlier on Monday, the heartbroken mother of three children who were allegedly killed by a drunk driver in Sydney’s west says she is still waiting for them to come home.
Leila Geagea Abdallah, 32, returned to the Oatlands crash site on Monday after her children Antony, 13, Angelina, 12, and Sienna, 8, were killed alongside their cousin Veronique Sakr, 11, while on an evening walk.
A stoic Ms Abdallah said she felt like nothing was real two days on from the incident on Saturday night.
“To be fully honest with you, it feels very unreal, I still don’t feel it’s true, I feel that they are still with me – I’m still waiting for them to come home,” she said.
“I opened my eyes this morning, I was waiting for Antony, Angelina and Sienna … you see all of them around each other, cheering each other up, lifting each other.
“And I just miss them – I was waiting for that.”
MESSAGES OF SUPPORT FOR THE OATLANDS CRASH FAMILIES
Samuel Davidson, 29, was allegedly three times over the legal blood alcohol limit on Saturday night when his Mitsubishi ute mounted a kerb and struck seven children on the footpath.
The children, who were all relatives, were being babysit by an aunt at Ms Abdallah’s house as she and her husband Danny went to another relative’s 21st birthday party.
Ms Abdallah, a member of the Maronite church, said she had prayed her whole life to God but did not foresee losing her children.
“I didn’t ask him to take my kids, I asked him to take everything away from me but my kids,” she said.
“To be honest with you, I am sad, I am heartbroken, but I’m at peace because I know my kids are in a better place. My kids are angels. They are right now with us, I can feel them, I’ve got goosebumps, I can feel them touching me and telling me they are with us.”
Ms Abdallah said she could not hate Davidson despite his alleged actions.
“I can’t hate him, I don’t want to see him, I don’t hate him … I think in my heart, I forgive him,” she said.
“But I want the court to be fair and right – it’s all about fairness.
“I’m not going to hate him, because that’s not who we are and that’s not what our religion tells us.”
The tremendous loss for Australia’s 200,000-strong Lebanese community has reverberated in Beirut, where Prime Minister Hassan Diab tweeted: “This tragedy has affected all of Lebanon and not just the families of the victims.”
المأساة التي أصابت أهلنا ÙÙŠ أوستراليا بخسارة Ù¤ أطÙال لبنانيين، من بينهم Ù£ أشقاء، آلمتنا كثيراً وهي Ùاجعة أصابت لبنان وليس Ùقط ذوي الضØايا. لبنان كله يشعر بالأسى. رØÙ… الله الضØايا وألهم ذويهم الصبر.
— Hassan B. Diab (@Hassan_B_Diab) February 2, 2020
The tragedy has been shared heavily on social media in Lebanon, with many paying their respects to the families involved.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry has instructed the country’s ambassador to Australia to also follow up on the incident and aid the grieving families.
A further three children from the same extended family — an 11-year-old boy and two girls aged 10 and 13 — were taken to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead where the boy was in a coma.
Danny Abdallah, 41, the father of the three siblings, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday the 11-year-old boy had come out of his coma.
Mr Abdallah said his family was grateful for the public support, but said the family was struggling through their grief.
“We just don’t know what to do,” he said.
“I’ve just got to be strong.”
Yesterday, Mr Abdallah broke down at the scene of the crash and dropped to his knees.
“This morning I woke up — I have lost three kids,” he said on Sunday. “I had a cousin, she lost her daughter as well. I don’t know what to say. I’m numb.”
Neighbours had rushed to perform CPR on the children until paramedics arrived.
Seasoned police officers were moved to tears by the scene that met them and will receive counselling.
Distraught family members, including the Abdallah children’s mother Leila Geagea, and friends gathered by a growing floral memorial yesterday.
A shattered Mrs Abdallah dropped to her knees to pray while a man collapsed.
“Why? Why?” another woman screamed.
Mr Abdallah said the children were all related and in the care of his aunt while the family were at a 21st birthday party.
They were going for a “casual walk at sunset and would come back before the sun drops”.
“They were going for a walk, an evening walk together and I was very clear on telling them to stay together and on the footpath,” he said.
“I told them to go for a walk, a little walk and stay together. ‘You guys should be OK’, give them a little independence and this is a one-in-a-million chance thing.”
He echoed the fears of every parent in Australia when they heard the news.
“All I just want to say is please, drivers, be careful. These kids were just walking innocently, enjoying each others’ company,” he said. “Please, just make sure you loved your loved ones, your kids especially, because you don’t know when.”
Mr Abdallah, a builder, and his family are well known in the close-knit Maronite Catholic community. He said he loved raising his young children with wife, Leila, 34.
“We had six kids 10 years and under, it was beautiful, we loved it, it wasn’t a problem,” he said.
“That was my full-time job, I always say I was a full-time father, part-time worker — they were my priority. And now they’re gone.”
He paid tribute to his children.
“Antony is 13, very handsome boy and he loved basketball, he woke up that morning and said ‘we’re going to play this game for Kobe (Bryant)’,” he said. “Angelina, she was my MLH – my little helper. Anything I needed, she had my back. And Sienna, she was my little diva, my little actor.
“They’ve gone to a better place.”
Veronique’s family said in a statement: “We are devastated by the tragic and senseless loss of our beautiful girl.
“Words cannot describe the pain we feel for all the families impacted by this tragedy.
“Veronique was a vibrant 11-year-old girl, full of life, love and had a maturity well beyond her young years.”
Police Minister and Baulkham Hills MP David Elliott wrote on Twitter: “The news of the deaths and injury to a group of children riding their bikes tonight is absolutely heartbreaking.
“As if this summer hasn’t caused enough heartache.”
HEARTBROKEN SCHOOL MATES UNITED IN GRIEF
Shattered classmates and friends of the Abdallah children have paid their respects at a special gathering.
Students, parents and teachers from The King’s School and Tara Anglican School for Girls gathered in Tara’s chapel in North Parramatta on Sunday afternoon to mourn the deaths of Antony, 13, Angelina, 12, and Sienna, 8.
Tara principal Susan Middlebrook told The Daily Telegraph opening up the chapel to both King’s School families and Tara families to come together “felt like the right thing to do”.
“We thought it was important to do so people had a place to go,” she said. “Our school communities are really tight and people needed to come to a place where they knew the (Abdallah) girls and Antony and be together as families.”
King’s principal Tony George said the crash was an “affront” to both school communities, who felt “a real mixture of despair, anger and frustration” towards the alleged actions of driver 29-year-old Samuel Davidson.
“This is a time for grief and mourning, but what has (allegedly) happened isn’t just sad and devastating, it’s an affront,” he said. “I can’t for a moment begin to imagine what (the Abdullah and Sakr) families are going through right now. This can never be forgotten, and it will leave its imprint on both our school communities.”
Children and parents from local schools in the area brought flowers and prayers to the site of the horror crash on Monday morning.
Oatlands Public School mum Sarah Uesi brought her three kids Alex, 11, Precious, 10, and Sisilia, 7, to the roadside memorial before school.
“We thought we’d pay our respects,” Sarah said.
“My niece and nephew used to walk this same path going to school, it can happen to anybody,” she said.
Flowers lined the fence in front of the golf course where the children died, the makeshift roadside memorial full of messages of grief and love from family, friends and the community.
Basketballs with notes to Antony Abdallah, 13, were left by mourners. One said “for Kobe, with Kobe”. Another said “thank you for all the memories we made together … until we meet again”.
One mourner left knitted dolls representing the four children, a heartbreaking reminder of their innocence.
— Kaitlyn Hudson-O’Farrell, Derrick Krusche and Jessica McSweeney
PARISH URGED TO KEEP THE FAITH FOR DISTRAUGHT PARENTS
A priest at the church attended by the families of the children who died in the Oatlands crash says his entire parish has been left heartbroken by the mass tragedy.
The Abdallah, Sakr and Kassas families all regularly attend Our Lady of Lebanon in Harris Park, near Parramatta.
The church’s dean, Father Tony Sarkis, told The Daily Telegraph on Sunday that he was left shocked by the harrowing incident.
“The horrific accident that took place last night in Oatlands has tragically affected the lives of three families from our parish and the entire parish community,” Father Sarkis said.
“Sadly … three children from the Abdallah family, — Anthony, Angelina and Sienna — and one child from the Sakr family — Veronique — lost their lives, while three other children remain in hospital: the sister of the Abdallah children and her two cousins from the Kassas family.”
Mr Sarkis said all three families have played an active role in the Maronite church.
“All three families are members of our parish community and regularly attend mass on Sunday along with other spiritual, pastoral and social events,” he said.
“Danny Abdallah has been a very big supporter of the parish for many years and his family is very devoted to their Maronite catholic faith.
“We have been supporting the family since we heard the tragic news last night through our prayers and masses firstly and through our ongoing support by their side.
“This heartbreaking event has touched the hearts of all the community and we ask everyone to continue to pray for the three families.”
Our Lady of Lebanon in Harris Park is the largest Maronite catholic parish in Australia.
In Sydney’s west at Belfield, 300 worshippers packed out the Church of St Michael the Archangel on Sunday night for an Evening Prayer service.
A friend of one of the grieving families led the sombre service, dedicating a prayer to each of the children and asking the church to “unite in prayer”. Part of the service was filmed “for the families” to show the community’s support following the tragic accident.
“Please keep both these families in your prayers after this tragedy in the next few days,” he told the congregation.
“We pray for both of them, and anyone grieving or in a similar situation.”
Worshippers also placed four bouquets of flowers for the children on top of relics at the front of the church. All were invited to the front at the end of the half-hour prayer to pay their respects.
— Derrick Krusche and Kaitlyn Hudson-O’Farrell
Originally published as Leila Geagea ‘doesn’t hate’ allegedly drunk driver Samuel Davidson