A Family's Heartbreak Goes Public
Days after losing their son to gun violence inside one of Hamilton's busiest shopping destinations, Nabil Askafe's parents sat down with CBC Hamilton to do something incredibly difficult — talk about the boy they loved.
Nabil was 16 years old when he was shot and killed at Jackson Square mall in Hamilton, Ontario. In the days that followed, the city grappled with the shock of a teenager's life cut short in a public space where families shop, eat, and gather every day.
But for Nabil's mother and father, the grief is profoundly personal. His mother's words, quiet and devastating, captured something that statistics and headlines rarely can.
"He was the first one to call me mom," she said.
The Face Behind the Story
In the immediate aftermath of violent incidents, victims can sometimes become abstractions — names in a news ticker, ages in a police press release. Nabil's parents spoke out, in part, to make sure their son was remembered as a full human being: a teenager with a family, a history, a bond with his mother that she carries as both joy and grief now.
That simple phrase — the first one to call me mom — speaks to a relationship, a milestone, a beginning. And now, an ending that came far too soon.
For families across Canada, moments like these are a painful reminder of how quickly and randomly tragedy can arrive.
Gun Violence and Public Spaces
The shooting at Jackson Square has renewed conversation in Hamilton and beyond about safety in shared public spaces. Shopping malls, which were once seen as community hubs — especially for teens — have increasingly become sites of violent incidents in cities across the country.
Canada has seen troubling upticks in youth-involved gun violence in urban centres over the past several years. While Hamilton is not alone in wrestling with this, the death of a 16-year-old inside a downtown mall hits with particular weight. Nabil was the kind of age where life is supposed to be full of firsts — not last moments.
Police and community leaders in Hamilton have faced renewed pressure to address the root causes of youth violence, from economic precarity to lack of safe programming and mental health supports for young people.
A Community Asked to Hold Grief and Questions Together
For the Askafe family, speaking publicly was an act of courage. Grief of this magnitude is rarely something families choose to share — and yet, doing so often becomes the only way to ensure a son or daughter isn't forgotten or reduced to a statistic.
Hamilton residents have been left to mourn alongside a family they may not know, while also asking the harder questions: How did this happen? What needs to change? And who else might we lose if we don't?
Nabil Askafe was 16. He called his mother "mom" before anyone else did. That is the detail she wants the world to know.
Source: CBC Hamilton via CBC Top Stories. Read the original interview at CBC.ca.
