City will be united again

PEOPLE in Manchester have more than once suffered the horrifying effect of bombing. Before the IRA and Arena terrorist bombings, many lost their lives to the Luftwaffe.

Time and again people have come together, comforting not only each other, but also others further afield.

And Manchester is a city community where different colours and ethnic streams mix, combine and enrich, like beautifully marbled paper.

We have tensions and have produced our own terrorists, but we also have many more examples of Jew and Muslim, Kurd and Syrian, Irish, Pole and Brit supporting each other when the other is attacked, both as individuals and as communities.

It makes us stronger and who we are.

Manchester has a large and maturing Somali community. The Somali diaspora worldwide is shaken by the terrorist bomb in Mogadishu – the capital of Somalia – where an unknown number, probably in excess of 300, have been killed in a fireball and hundreds injured.

That such an event be pushed out of our news agenda is an inditement of our civilisation. As a former teacher in Moss Side and Chorlton I know Somalis are not all terrorists or pirates.

I am grateful for their friendship and to have had them as colleagues. They are the sort of people one would like to have as neighbours.

Somalis have big families and there will be people in our city grieving the loss of relatives and friends. Let us all remember them in our thoughts and prayers and work to ensure a just, stable and peaceful world for all so such hate and evils become a thing of the past. Name and address supplied