Refugee Week role model feared for life after daytime assault

AN industrious young schoolboy and gifted teenage rapper who fled the Congo for a better life in Scotland has become the latest victim in an ever increasing catalogue of brutal race attacks in Glasgow.

Christopher Ikolo, the 15-year-old black victim of the crime, was accosted in the street as he returned to school from his lunch-break last Friday, called a "black bastard" and knifed in the back in broad daylight in Govanhill on Glasgow's southside.

Last year 168 race attacks perpetrated by youths were reported in Glasgow. In the past three years there have been 433 incidents.

Theboysufferedadeep,life- threatening wound to his kidney and was rushed to the Victoria Infirmary where he underwent emergency surgery.

Ikolo was walking down a lane near the high-rise flats where he lives with his mother and brother in the Cathcart area when his white attacker approached him.

"When he got 10 feet from me," said Ikolo, "he started saying things and called me a black bastard. I reacted and we started fighting. He was losing the fight and then he pulled out the knife.

"I remember seeing it and I ran away, but then I felt a sharp pain in my hip."

DespitestabbingIkoloonce,the attacker, who was aged around 19 years old,continuedtochasetheinjured schoolboy as he attempted to run to safety inside Holyrood Secondary School.

The attacker eventually gave up the chase when Ikolo managed to make it into the school's sports centre next door.

"There was a teacher there and I told him what had happened," said Ikolo, who was released from hospital and returned home yesterday. "He called the police and then an ambulance came."

The first thoughts in the youth's head as he waited for the ambulance to take him to hospital were for his mum Beiotsi, 39, and his brother, Yohan, who is six.

He says he dreaded the thought of what would happen to them if he died as a result of the attack. "I started to find it harder and harder to breath and I thought that I might die," Ikolo explained.

"I was worried about what would happen to my mum and little brother Yohan. I care for him and look after him, soIwasscaredaboutwhatwould happen to him if I died. So I refused to give in and fought to stay awake."

Despite being the victim of brutal racist knife attack, Ikolo is still upbeat about his new life in Scotland.

"I like it here," he said, "and I have lots of friends. I feel safer here, even though I have been stabbed. In Congo there are gunshots going off all the time. You are more likely to be killed there than here."

His mother said: "When I heard what had happened my heart sank. I was shocked scared and angry. I am just glad it was not worse - he could easily have been killed. The police have to punish this person to show other bad boys in the area they cannot do this."

Police are treating the knifing as a racially aggravated attack. Detective Sergeant Debbie Johnstone said: "This was an unprovoked attack on a young boy and I would appeal to anyone who was in the area at the time and may have witnessed the attack to come forward."

The attacker was described as around 19 years old, slim and about 6ft tall. He was wearing a black and white jumper and dark coloured baseball cap.

HolyroodSecondary,whichIkolo attends, is predominantly Catholic, and thelargestschoolinEurope,with around 2300 pupils.

Ikolo has become something of a minor celebrity and a role model for young black boys in Glasgow. Writing in this year's Refugee Week Magazine about his rap band A-Boiz, Ikolo said: "I love Scotland, the atmosphere, the fun. I hope to have a future here.

"I'd love the band to do well, to make enough money to support a family, get them to a good school, live in a good house. But for now, friends are the really important thing."

He added: "We started the band two years ago. I rap and another member of the band sings, but we all write our songs together. They're about stuff that affects us all - love, relationships, how we party - about how we live our lives.

"Life can be hard sometimes. I haven't written about my life before I came here yet, but some day I will."

A female friend of Ikolo's who also plays in the band with him, wrote in the same magazine: "Christopher is an amazing rapper, one of the best. I think he'll be famous because of it. I really hope so because he really loves it.

"Christopher is a kind person. He's always the first person to invite you into his house when it's cold outside." She compared Ikolo to the rapper The Game, oneofwestcoastAmerica'smost influential hip-hop artists.

Thethemeofthisyear'sScottish RefugeeWeekwasDifferentPasts, Shared Futures, inspired by the theme of friendship between Scotland's ethnic communities.