ISIS BUTCHER KILLED MY MUM & DAD TOO
How aid worker David’s execution shattered family
MURDERED aid worker David Haines’s parents were also victims of Isis, his brother said yesterday.
Mike Haines spoke out yesterday in the wake of the Manchester bombing to call for communities to remain united and not surrender to hatred in the face of acts of terrorism.
He said his mother Mary, who died in 2015, had “never recovered” from the horror of David’s murder by Isis in Syria the previous year.
And his father Chris slipped into dementia before his death two weeks ago.
Mike, who lives in Dundee and founded the Global Acts of Unity campaign to spread his message against hatred, said: “There’s a big David-shaped hole in my life.
“There’s not a day goes past where I don’t think of him. I lost my mother not long after. My mother never recovered.
“My father very, very quickly slipped into dementia and we lost him just two weeks ago. It’s very difficult.”
Mike, 50, praised the response from the community in Manchester. And he stressed the importance of reaching out to “estranged youths” before they’re targeted by extremist groomers.
He added: “Every act of terror is about hatred. They want us to stand up and spout hatred. They want to divide our community.
“So it’s really important that Manchester showed the way. Manchester stood together, is standing together.”
Mike has delivered talks on tolerance to more than 30,000 people in the last three years and believes it has made a difference to several individuals.
David was abducted while working with displaced people in 2013 and murdered on video by Isis in September 2014.