UA Student Killed in Terror Attack Laid to Rest

Fraternity brothers from the University of Alabama Chapter of Sigma Chi paid respects today to freshman Kareen Badawi in his hometown of Baton Rouge. They joined hundreds of mourners, including many of the 18-year-old's 2024 Episcopal High School classmates and football teammates, saying goodbye to a life taken by the senseless terror attack on the New Orlean's French Quarter in the early hours of New Year's morning.

Badawi and his best friend from high school, Ethan Ott, had just finished their first semester in Tuscaloosa. Both had pledged to the Iota Iota Chapter of Sigma Chi at UA and were roommates. The pair joined several other high school classmates in a trip to New Orleans for the huge Bourbon Street New Year's celebration.

“He thought it’s a big city and New Orleans would have parties … He thought it would be a good idea, and there would be a bigger party than Baton Rouge,” Kareem's father, Belal Badawi, told the New York Post.

“The next day was the Sugar Bowl, and he loves sports, so he thought New Orleans was the place to be for New Year’s Eve. The New Year’s Eve is not what he expected or planned for and unfortunately, he got killed.”

The elder Badawi told the Post that he had received and replied to a text from his son wishing a happy new year shortly after midnight. At 3:15am an ISIS sympathizer drove his pickup truck flying a flag from the terror group, around police car barricades, onto a sidewalk and then down Bourbon Street killing Badawi and 13 others. One of his high school classmates, Parker Vidrine, was also injured in the attack and remains in the intensive care.

In an interview on WBRZ TV in Baton Rouge, Kareem’s former football coach, Travis Bourgeois, fondly remembered him: “Why innocent people have to suffer, especially a guy like Kareem, was well liked, not a hurtful bone in his body. He's a very kind, gentle guy, well liked you know, people went to Kareem because he's a positive guy.”