1 week Ago By [email protected] (Conaill Corner, Ashlie Blakey)
A Muslim woman was left 'trembling' after a stranger on a train told her he might kill as he walked home. Lila Tamea, a 27-year-old Yemeni Muslim, was subjected to a horrific rant as she got the train home from Liverpool to Warrington, the Liverpool Echo reports. She said she was on the busy Saturday night service when three men got on and sat beside her.
She then filmed the exchange as one of the men told her to 'get out' of the country and said 'we need to kill all Muslims'. He then told her: "People think that now the riots are over, Islamophobia is finished, but it's not." READ NEXT: Chaos erupts on Ryanair Manchester to Ibiza flight as passengers start 'scrapping' mid-air The man also repeatedly used the N-word while on the busy train service, Lila said.
British Transport Police said officers are investigating 'reports of a man racially abusing a woman' on the train. Recalling the incident, Lila, a researcher, said: "The men were really friendly at the beginning; I was eating my chicken katsu and seaweed salad and the three of them came over to my table. They said the food smelled really good.
I’d just finished the chicken but I offered them some of the seaweed. "They were all half drunk and asked me if I drank. I said no but that I’d love to join them because they were going to the pub in Warrington.
"That’s when they started talking about Muslims. I thought it was just some nice drunk chaps on the train home on a Saturday. One of them asked what I do and I told him I’m a researcher - I don’t like to go into too much detail with random people about what I do.
He kept asking about what I researched so I said ‘racism in education’. "It was when I told them what I did that they began being properly racist. He said to me: ‘You can research us, we’re racists’.
I thought they were joking at first. "He said: ‘I want to kill all Muslims, I want to get rid of them all, I want to kill them all.’ I looked at his mate next to me and he told me: ‘He’s just joking, don’t listen to him’.
"So I thought ‘okay’. I’m a bit autistic so I actually couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. Anyway, he kept on yapping on and I asked him if he wanted to kill me.
He then said: ‘No, not you because you’re alright.’ "So I asked him why he wanted to kill all Muslims. At one point he said he might kill me while I’m walking home.
They started talking about illegal immigrants." Lila continued: "I knew the guy was clearly misinformed. That’s when he started to get a bit more agitated and frustrated at the fact that he is actually misinformed.
"I started getting a bit worried; they started talking about ‘n-words’ and ‘n-words stabbing n-words’. He told me how his grandad fought in World War II against people like me. "I told him that the immigration problem that he’s got wouldn’t be happening if people stopped bombing and killing Muslims in their own country.
He said: ‘Brilliant, we should go and kill them all before they come here’. "It was when he started talking about a machine gun that I got really alarmed. He goes: ‘Bring on the revolution! I’m going to get my machine gun, I’m going to kill all Muslims.
’ "He said: ‘You think you’re talking to a minority but actually, when the sh*t hits the fan, it’s all going to come out of the woodworks. I’m just one person, there’s 20 million of us'. "He said it so casually and that’s been the scariest part for me.
People think that now the riots are over, Islamophobia is finished, but it's not." Lila said the men were eventually thrown off the train. She continued: "Afterwards I was trembling - it hit me how I’ve adjusted my life to just accept that people want to kill me for banter.
"At one point his mate was saying: ‘He won’t kill you, he fancies you.’ I’m 5ft1 and there was three men next to me. I was powerless in that situation and I was stunned.
" A spokesperson for the British Transport Police said: "We are aware of reports of a man racially abusing a woman on board a train between Liverpool and Warrington on Saturday (7 September). Enquiries into this incident are ongoing, and anyone with information is asked to contact BTP by texting 61016, quoting reference 787 of 7 September." Read more of today's top stories here.
