Bondi Beach shooting: ‘Maybe he’s an angel now,’ says 10-year-old victim’s aunt

The family of the youngest Bondi shooting victim, Matilda, urged the community not to let her death fuel anger, as they said their final goodbyes to the 10-year-old girl on Thursday.

Matilda was among 15 people who were shot dead when two gunmen opened fire at an event marking the start of Hanukkah on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday.

Speaking to the BBC at Matilda’s funeral, her aunt Lina Chernykh said the Jewish community is right to want more action to eradicate antisemitism; her too.

But he said Matilda was a cheerful girl who spread love wherever she went and urged the community to do the same in her honour.

“Take your anger and… just spread happiness, love and memories for my lovely niece,” Chernykh said.

“I hope maybe she’s an angel now. Maybe she [will] Send good vibes to the world.”

Jewish community leaders have suggested in recent days that the tragedy was an inevitable result of Australia’s struggle to address rising antisemitism.

Sunday’s attack was the deadliest incident in the country since 1996, when a gunman killed 35 people during the Port Arthur massacre.

Mourners, including Governor-General Sam Mostyn and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, packed the service in Sydney, wearing bee pins and stickers as a tribute to the girl who adored them.

Michael and Valentyna had named their daughter after the song Waltzing Matilda, as a tribute to the country where their Ukrainian family found safety.

“She’s waltzing with the angels,” Minns says, reading a poem in her honor.

Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, who led the service, had to pause and compose himself as he paid tribute to Matilda’s short life.

“The tragic, so totally cruel and unfathomable murder of young Matilda is for all of us as if our own daughter had been taken from us,” he said.

The service heard how he had lived with beauty, kindness and righteousness.

“Jews…believe that death is not eternal…it’s not because we’re naïve,” Rabbi Ulman said.

“I tell you with absolute conviction that the separation with Matilda is not forever.”

Still, he admitted that his words would likely offer little comfort, something he knows all too well. A day earlier, Rabbi Ulman spoke at the funeral of his own son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was also killed in the Bondi attack.

“You give me strength at a time when you yourselves need strength. And I try to do the same,” he told Matilda’s parents, who were sobbing in the front row.

Chernykh previously said the family was devastated.

“I look at their faces [and] “I don’t know if they will ever be happy again,” he said of Matilda’s parents.

Matilda’s younger sister, with whom she was “inseparable”, is devastated and confused, he said.

“She doesn’t have enough tears to cry.”

At a floral tribute on Tuesday, Matilda’s mother Valentyna told mourners the family was living a nightmare.

“I couldn’t imagine that I would lose my daughter here,” she said.

Chernykh has also struggled to make sense of what is happening.

She was gardening at her home on the Gold Coast when Matilda’s mother called her on Sunday.

“The truth is I was thinking that something happened to my father because he is 84 years old… and she says that Matilda was shot,” he recalled.

“As [could] Does anyone in Australia understand it, if someone tells you that your son was shot… I couldn’t understand it. I was thinking I have bad reception. I asked several times what I am. [hearing]”.

Police have called the attack a terrorist incident, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it appears to have been “motivated by the ideology of the Islamic State group.”

Police allege the two gunmen were father and son. Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead at the scene, while his son Naveed, 24, has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act.

Australia announced on Thursday it would strengthen laws to crack down on hate, including introducing powers to cancel or refuse visas on the grounds of anti-Semitism.