Aya Al-Umari ate dinner with her big brother, Hussein Al-Umari, last Thursday night.
Just one day later, Hussein Al-Umari died in the terrorist attacks on two Christchurch, New Zealand, mosques. When Aya later noticed her “SEE YOU BYE” t-shirt slung over a chair in her room, she felt it was her brother saying farewell to her.
Aya Al-Umari
Hussein Al-Umari, 35, was a friendly, generous, protective older brother, Aya Al-Umari says. Hussein and his sister were both born in the United Arab Emirates to Iraqi parents. They emigrated to New Zealand in 1997. “We’ve got three homes,” says Aya, 33.
Hussein loved cars and travel. He was between jobs in hotel tourism, according to his sister. Hussein and Aya Al-Umari often went to the beach, drank coffee and worked together on his resume. She says he liked to call her a “little ladybug.”
On Friday, Hussein went to services. And when the gunman entered the mosque, instead of running away, he ran toward the shooter, Aya Al-Umari says, yelling at him, “Get out of here.” Hussein died trying to tackle the assailant, she says.
Ultimately,50 peoplewere killed in the dual shootings at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques, and 36 had been hospitalized as of Saturday,New Zealand Police stated on Twitter. An Australian man named Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with murder for the attacks, but in court on Saturday he entered no plea, according totheWashington Post.
Hussein and Aya Al-Umari.Aya Al-Umari
“It wasn’t surprising to me at all,” Aya Al-Umari tells PEOPLE of her brother’s bravery. “I honestly have no idea how he had the courage to do that. It makes me very proud. Those moments that he tackled him could save other people. When the first shot of rounds were happening, he actually had a chance to run away. You know fight or flight? He fought. The majority of the people – even me — I would probably run away. It just makes me so proud that my brother had the chance to run away, but he didn’t.”
In her bedroom, she has booklets for volunteer work in Fiji and the Pacific Islands. To honor her brother’s memory, she plans to start volunteering and adding more good to the world.
Click here to sign up for PEOPLE’s True Crime newsletter for the latest breaking crime news as well as our ongoing coverage of the most intriguing cases
“I want to help people now,” she says. “I’m going to do it in his name.”
“It’s as if I were speaking to my brother, because he was the last person to see him. I said to him, ‘I lost one brother. But I gained a lot of brothers on the way.’”
source: people.com
