A close-knit migrant community in Sydney has come together after the tragic death of one of its members.
Mohammed Omor Faruk, a 25-year-old student, was found dead in his room in the Sydney suburb of Lidcombe on September 19.
His closest friend in Australia, Mohammed Parvez Hossain, has organized a GoFundMe account to help repatriate Mr. Faruk to his home country of Bangladesh.
When Mr Faruk’s family did not hear from him for three days, they contacted Ms Hossain via Facebook.
He called his friend and got no answer, so he called a friend who lived nearby to check on Faruk.
The student who moved to Australia in 2022 was found “lying on the floor next to the bed,” Hossain told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.
Hossain, who is also from Bangladesh and had studied with Faruk in South Korea, arrived at the house minutes later.
The paramedics, who had already arrived at the scene, told him that his friend had been dead for 36 hours or more.
Muhammad Omor Faruk, a 25-year-old student, was found dead in his room on September 19.
‘But no one really knew (he had died) because it was a house and he lived alone in a room.
“His roommates were from another country and they didn’t knock on his door because they didn’t know this could happen,” he said.
The initial fundraising goal of $12,000 had almost been met by Monday afternoon.
“We have raised enough funds to send his body back (to his family in Bangladesh),” Hossain said.
He said the money had been raised very quickly, with donations coming from all over the world, as news of the tragedy spread.
Mr Faruk had been living in the Sydney suburb of Lidcombe (pictured Lidcombe Post Office)
‘We are very happy to have received so much response from all over the world.
“We have a lot of friends from our university who moved to different countries and we reached out to each of them and they also sent this campaign to their friends and family,” he said.
“That’s how we got a great response from everyone, not only from Australia, (but also from) South Korea, from European countries, from the United States and from Canada.”
The exact cause of Mr. Faruk’s death is still unknown.
