A close-knit migrant community in Sydney has banded together after the tragic death of one of its members.
Mohammed Omor Faruk, a 25-year-old student, was found dead in his room in the Lidcombe suburb of Sydney on September 19.
His closest friend in Australia, Mohammed Parvez Hossain, has organised a GoFundMe account to help repatriate Mr Faruk to his home country, Bangladesh.
When Mr Faruk’s family had not heard from him for three days, they contacted Ms Hossain through Facebook.
He called his friend and got no response, so he called a friend who lived nearby to check on Mr Faruk.
The student who moved to Australia in 2022 was found ‘laying down on the floor beside the bed’, Mr Hossain told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.
Mr Hossain, who is also from Bangladesh and had studied with Mr Faruk in South Korea, arrived at the home minutes later.
Paramedics, who had already arrived at the scene, told him that his friend had been dead for 36 hours or more.
Muhammad Omor Faruk, a 25-year-old student, was found dead in his room on September 19
‘But no one actually knew (he had died) because it was a house and he was living in a room by himself alone.
‘His flatmates were from another country and they didn’t knock on his door because they didn’t realise that this could happen,’ he said.
The fundraiser’s initial goal of $12,000 had almost been reached by Monday afternoon.
‘We have raised enough funds to send his body back (to his family in Bangladesh),’ Mr Hossain said.
He said the money had been raised very quickly, with donations coming from all around the world, as news of the tragedy spread.
Mr Faruk had been living in the Lidcombe suburb of Sydney (Lidcombe post office pictured)
‘We are really happy that we got so much response from around the world.
‘We have like a lot of friends from our undergrad university who moved to different countries and we reached every one of them and they also forwarded this campaign to their friends and families as well,’ he said.
‘That’s how we got like a huge response from everyone, not only from in Australia, (but also from) South Korea, from European countries, from America, from Canada.’
The exact cause of Mr Faruk’s death in not yet known.
