Five arrested after Sydney Jewish students left terrified
Five people have been arrested by police after Jewish students were left terrified and subjected to anti-Semitic taunts while on the school bus yesterday afternoon.
The children, between the ages of 5 and 12, were travelling on Darley Road in Randwick on the way home from Mount Sinai College and Emanuel School when eight teenagers, described as caucasian males, boarded the bus.
Inspector Chris Stiles confirmed to The Australian Jewish News that five teenagers have been arrested and will be interviewed by detectives today.
“The young people the bus, from the school, will also be interviewed today,” Inspector Stiles said.
He said until the arrested teenagers are interviewed, he can’t comment further.
One of the students said they asked the bus driver to kick the teenagers off the bus.
“They were being anti-Semitic and staying things about Hitler and nasty stuff about the Jews,” a student said.
One mother said the children were traumatised because the young people were screaming “Heil Hitler”, “kill the Jews” and “we’re going to cut your throat”.
“The kids were all crying. They were all traumatised. There were tears flying and everyone was crying,” the mother said.
The police were contacted and have launched an investigation in conjunction with the State Transit Authority (STA), who runs the bus route.
The Jewish schools involved will be increasing supervision on buses from today.
The Australian Jewish News understand that the school, in conjunction with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Communal Security Group, have already commenced discussions with the STA to minimise the possibility of a reoccurrence of this sort of incident.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president Yair Miller said this is an extremely traumatising and unfortunate incident for the children involved.
“All indication is that this was a random incident and the authorities are dealing with it at the moment,” Miller said.
“We are awaiting for more information before making a further comment.”
Police have confirmed that the students were subjected to physical and verbal threats, but that no students were harmed.
More to follow.
AJN STAFF
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