LONDON: The uncle of a young Syrian refugee who was stabbed to death in the UK on April 3 said the boy had only lived in the town he was in for two weeks before his murder.

Ahmad Mamdouh Al-Ibrahim, 16, was stabbed in the neck in Huddersfield while out getting to know the area. Alfie Franco, 20, was arrested and appeared in court charged with Al-Ibrahim’s murder.

Al-Ibrahim was living in Huddersfield with the family of his uncle, who told The Guardian that he had encouraged his nephew to go out and make friends following the end of Ramadan.

“He was trying to make a friend, because he didn’t have friends here. I said to him, you have to go out into the town centre to know (where everything is), to know where you can go shopping … plus, you’re going to make friends,” said his uncle, who asked to remain anonymous.

“He’d only spent a few days with my kids but they loved him so much because he was a very nice boy, very lovely and kindly with the kids. He played with them and gave them a lot of time.” 

He said rumors circulating online that his nephew was a drug dealer had caused him great distress, adding that he had not yet told his own children, all aged under 10, that their cousin is dead. They believe he is still in hospital.

“He was only 16,” he said tearfully. “He was a good boy. He went from a nice family (in Syria) to a nice family (in the UK).”

Al-Ibrahim, he said, had left behind his family in the Syrian city of Homs, where he had been a popular student with teachers and classmates, and had excelled at maths.

“That’s why he came here. He wished to be a doctor, to save people,” said his uncle, who fled the civil war in Syria.

“We’ve been eight years here — we’ve not had trouble, not had a problem. We go from work to home, school, that’s it.”

Al-Ibrahim’s uncle said when he first moved to the UK last October, his nephew had spent time in a refugee center in Swansea.

He told The Guardian that staff at the center, as well as the teenager’s social worker, were “heartbroken” by what had happened, and that they told him they had “never seen him happy like this” when they checked on his well-being after he moved to Huddersfield on March 20.

“They were crying for Ahmad, they said they loved him,” the uncle said, adding that the family had been left afraid by the killing.

“I’ve been (in Huddersfield) eight years. I thought it was a safe place. I didn’t worry before, like now.”

Many members of the local community have raised money for Al-Ibrahim’s body to be returned to his family in Syria.

Maneer Siddique, who owns a local tailoring business, launched a fundraising page that has raised over £10,000 ($12,910) for the family.

“You would want help if you were in a dire situation, so why shouldn’t you help somebody else in a dire situation,” Siddique told The Guardian.

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s largest B2B commerce platform ShopUp has entered Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem through a merger with Riyadh-based services and marketplace platform Sary, backed by US and Saudi investors.

Both ShopUp and Sary help small businesses buy products in bulk from wholesalers or manufacturers with digital ordering platforms, delivery and financial services.

Together they have formed SILQ Group, backed by a $110 million funding led by Sanabil Investments — a company owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.

The companies said in their merger announcement on Wednesday that they are “set to become one of the world’s largest trade corridors. It is projected to reach $682 billion.”

“We’re building infrastructure that helps small businesses move goods, access financing, and grow. A key part of this is the launch of SILQ Financial, our dedicated financing arm focused on driving innovation in SME funding. It allows us to offer embedded financial products — natively within our platforms,” ShopUp’s CEO Afeef Zaman told Arab News.

“There’s a $682 billion trade opportunity emerging right here between the Gulf and Emerging Asia. We want to go deep and serve this corridor well ... We’re laying the foundation to expand beyond this corridor in the long term.”

ShopUp was founded by Zaman, Ataur Rahim Chowdhury, and Navaneetha Krishnan J. in 2017, while Sary was founded in 2018 by Mohammed Aldossary and Khaled Alsiari.

Zaman will serve as the CEO of SILQ Group and Aldossary as CEO of SILQ Financial.

ShopUp and Sary have served more than 600,000 retailers, hotels, restaurants, cafes, and wholesalers, to date. The combined network has facilitated over $5 billion in transactions and disbursed more than $750 million in embedded financing.

Zaman believes that more Bangladeshi startups will follow in ShopUp’s footsteps, as the Saudi market offers not only scale, capital, and sophistication, but also a cultural overlap, a strong consumer base — including 3 million Bangladeshi expats — “and a hunger for innovation” across retail, finance, and logistics.

“Bangladeshi startups have a lot to offer in terms of resilience and operating in high-density, resource-constrained environments. In return, Saudi Arabia offers access to institutional partnerships, forward-thinking regulation, and the ability to test and scale products that can work globally,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia is writing one of the most exciting startup stories in the world right now. The pace of change, the vision, and the level of institutional support — especially for high-impact sectors like fintech, logistics, and B2B — make it one of the most promising markets for founders.”

The Bangladeshi government welcomed ShopUp’s merger as “a defining moment” in its digital journey and “one of the most significant global expansion milestones ever achieved by a startup from Bangladesh.”

It also announced the establishment of a dedicated fund to provide capital support to startup companies.

“This moment is more than a funding headline — it’s a clear signal that Bangladeshi startups are ready for the world stage,” the government’s press wing said in a statement.

“To accelerate this momentum, Bangladesh Bank has committed to a landmark startup funding initiative: TK 800 crore (about $66 million) in equity and TK 400 crore (about $33 million) in debt. This fund will serve as a catalytic boost for early and growth-stage startups, empowering local founders to innovate, scale, and compete globally.”