Exchange student from Pakistan among 8 students killed in Santa Fe High School shooting
SANTA FE, Texas (KTRK) -- In Santa Fe, Texas, as families continue to mourn the tragic events from Friday, 17-year-old Sabika Sheikh's family is mourning half a world away.
"There is a lot of sadness to what could have been, all that potential, it was just snuffed out," Pakistan Consul General Aisha Farooqui said.
As the council general for Pakistan in Houston, Farooqui had the heartbreaking job of escorting the body of Sheikh from the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office to a funeral home in Houston.
"She is 17. Probably for her, this was the doorway to an experience that would lead her to great new horizons and it just ended all of a sudden," Farooqui said.
Sheikh is one of the eight students killed during the shooting at Santa Fe High School Friday. She was an exchange student from Pakistan who spent the last 10 months with an American family.
Within weeks she would have gone home to Karachi.
"Nobody should lose their child like this, no parent should lose their child like this and if you asked any one of the victims' family they are just bewildered as to why," MJ Khan said.
There are more than 150,000 Pakistanis who live in the Houston area, and though very few knew the teen, former city councilman Khan says they are all mourning her loss as they would one of their own daughters.
"Her family is heartbroken, they just don't understand," Khan said.
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan has just begun. It is a time of prayer and fasting that ends with a celebration.
Sheikh's family was planning a huge party to coincide with her homecoming.
Now, they wait for her body to be returned to her home country as they plan for her funeral.
"It will take them many, many months to get over something like this, she was their first child, first born, there are other younger kids, but it is a shock," Farooqui said.
There will be a local service for Sheikh in Stafford on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
