‘They yelled coronavirus’

A 24-year-old Thai man is thought to be the first victim of a hate crime linked to coronavirus in England, The Guardian reported today.

Pawat Silawattakun was assaulted and robbed by two teenagers who yelled "coronavirus" at him, the report says.

Silawattakun was travelling home in the late afternoon to west London when he was attacked on his local high street in full view of dozens of passersby, The Guardian quoted him as saying.

The tax consultant, who works in the city, was left with a broken nose, while one of the assailants stole his headphones and the other filmed the entire attack.

Following the attack, Silawattakun warned that the spread of the disease has created "a climate of racism" in the UK.

"I'd just got off the bus at Fulham when I heard a faint sound directed at me from my left across the street," The Guardian report quoted him as telling the Observer.

"I had these noise-cancelling headphones on and took them off as these guys just shouted 'Coronavirus! Coronavirus! Ha, ha!' in my face while filming me. I didn't get a chance to say anything – 'Please stop', or 'Why are you doing this?' – when one of them snatched the headphones from my neck."

The situation took a turn for the worse as Silawattakun tried to chase his attackers to get back his headphones.

"After about 50 metres, they ran across the road and I ran after [one of them] shouting: 'Why are you doing this?' When I reached the traffic island he turned round and punched me to the ground. There was blood everywhere," the report quoted the victim as saying.

The report adds that Silawattakun shouted out to bystanders but "no one seemed to care or pay attention initially". Eventually he was helped by two people and was sent to hospital.

Silawattakun was quoted as saying that his attackers didn't even leave the scene.

 "It's made me very wary, it's a terrible feeling knowing that they're still out there. It isn't just a robbery, there's also knowing that I've been targeted because of my ethnicity, and that they were filming me to humiliate me, as if east Asians are all submissive and easy targets."

Silawattakun moved to England to attend boarding school in Surrey before studying chemical engineering at Cambridge.

"Statistically, you're more likely to find an Asian doctor that will cure you than to find an Asian guy who will infect you with coronavirus, but this xenophobia is being taken out on all east Asians. When there was an Ebola outbreak a few years ago, did you get the public shouting 'Ebola!' at every black person on the street?"

After posting about his attack on Facebook, Silawattakun said he received dozens of messages from people sharing their own experiences of hostile and racist behaviour in recent weeks.

The Guardian quoted the Scotland Yard as saying, "Police are investigating an aggravated robbery committed in Fulham. The victim, a 24-year-old man, reported being racially abused by an unknown male suspect in Fulham Road, SW6. A second male suspect approached the victim from behind and stole his headphones and then assaulted him. The victim sustained a broken nose and received hospital treatment."

Silawattakun, meanwhile, remains shaken by the incident.

"It doesn't matter how much I've accomplished or how hard I've worked…None of that shields me or anyone else. I'm still just a target because I'm east Asian."