A second wind Survivor of Quebec City mosque shooting laces up in Boston

Saïd Akjour has one passion that’s followed him throughout his life: running.

So when the 46-year-old was shot in the shoulder while praying at the Quebec City mosque in January 2017, it only took a few days before his thoughts returned to running.

“I thought, ‘I have to run the 2017 marathon…. This tragedy, this violence, won’t take something I love away from me.’”

Akjour was one of five men wounded in the mosque shooting.

The following August, he kept the promise he had made to himself.

His left arm still pinned to the side of his body, Akjour ran a 10-kilometre race in Quebec City, all the while thinking of the six men killed in the shooting who would never run again.

“I was thinking of the people who aren’t here anymore, those we lost at the mosque.

I was thinking of their families, their loved ones.”

His passion for the sport meant when two bombs exploded near the finish line at the 2013 Boston Marathon, Akjour felt an instant connection to the victims. That year, he ran a 10-kilometre race in honour of the three people killed and more than 260 injured.

“This violence was meant to rob these people of something precious, to cut off their pleasure in life: their legs.”

Akjour never imagined that, a country away and years later, he too would become a target of hate.

Ceegaag.com