Time hasn’t helped fill the void left by Aiia Maasarwe, a 21-year-old Palestinian-Israeli woman who came to Melbourne to study for a year in 2019 only to die at the hands of a brutal murderer.
“It’s not easy. Aiia’s passing has kept a huge hole in our life and our heart. I think about her every day,” her father Saeed Maasarwe said.
“I cannot forget. Always she is in my mind. Not just me, all the family. She kept a big hole in our life. She was very positive girl, very happy. We miss her huge and we miss her immense.”
The young woman was killed four years ago on January 16 after she stepped off a city tram at Bundoora on her way home. She was talking with her sister Ruba on the phone when Codey Herrmann struck her with a pipe multiple times and raped her.
Herrmann was sentenced to 36 years jail, with 30 years without parole, by the Victorian Supreme Court in October 2019.
She is survived by her father, her mother Kittan Maasarwe and her sisters Ruba, Noor and Lena Maasarwe.
Her family, supported by international not-for-profit organisation Project Rozana which is headquartered in Melbourne, are determined her story will be defined by hope ahead of two fellowships being awarded to Palestinian physicians to train in Israeli hospitals on the anniversary of her death on Monday.
Read the article by Angelica Snowden in The Australian.