Mariam Moustafa’s family deny receiving donations for body transfer fees

CAIRO - 4 April 2018: Father of the Egyptian student died in UK, Mariam Moustafa, denied a BBC report claiming that his family received donations to transfer his daughter’s body to be buried in Egypt.

According to a BBC report on Wednesday, Aaron Todd, a lecturer at Nottingham College, where Moustafa used to study engineering, organized a charity marathon to collect £13,000 ($18.000) for Moustafa’s family.

Mariam's father told Egypt today that he has nothing to do with the tour organizer, pointing out that he does not object the donations if they are collected as an everlasting charity, so that his daughter's name be remembered, but not to help him transfer her body home to be buried.

Moustafa also added that the university offered to collect donations for Mariam’s body transfer, but he refused because the family is wealthy, besides the Egyptian government has paid all the expenses voluntarily, even though he did not ask them to do so.

In late February, Mariam, an engineering student based in Nottingham, U.K., was brutally beaten by 10 British women of African descent. The incident stirred condemnation of both the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the British embassy in Cairo.

U.K. police said there was no information to suggest the attack was motivated by racial hate, but authorities will “continue to keep an open mind.”

A 17-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of "assault occasioning grievous bodily harm" and has been released on bail, CNN reported.

The death of Mariam has resulted in outrage and fury in Egypt.

Mariam’s mother previously posted a video on social media saying that her daughter was in critical condition due to being brutally beaten by the ten women. She claimed that the assault was race-motivated, as her daughter didn’t actually know those girls at all and never talked with them before.

Immediately, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced it would follow the case through the Egyptian embassy in London and make sure the attackers are brought to justice.

Moreover, the ministry addressed concerns regarding the medical health care that Mariam received following the attack.

In a statement issued on March 2, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said they are following all of the case’s updates.

Abu Zeid said the Egyptian authorities demanded the British authorities to take more serious steps in investigating the abusers, especially that they were captured by the CCTV cameras from the streets and bus where the incident took place.