Cleveland 5th grader receives concussion after bullies attack her

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - A 10-year-old Cleveland girl is now moving schools after one of her bullies attacked her last week.

Fifth grader, Yasmeenah Belbouhali, said that her bully at Orchard Park Academy had been taunting her all week, claiming that she would fight her, but never did.

Until later that week.

“I was like, wait this cannot be happening,”

“I was like, wait this cannot be happening,” Belbouhali said. “Like, is she really hitting me?”

During the incident, students began to gather around and record the fight. They later published it online, where Belbouhali’s hijab was snatched off of her head.

“I wasn’t even worried about fighting back or anything,” Belbouhali said. “I was just worried about getting my hijab back on, because I don’t want people seeing my hair.”

When Belbouhali’s mother, Eliyona Belbouhali, picked her up from school- she says she wasn’t told the gravity of the situation. She didn’t take her daughter to the clinic until the next day.

“I called the police, I took her to the emergency room and when I got there (they told us) she had a severe concussion,” Eliyona said. “They told me it was a really bad concussion and she would need to see neurology.”

Yasmeenah’s injury was so severe that the doctors at Cleveland Clinic told her to limit her time studying. Now, she is only able to do light homework for up to 2 hours a day.

“I feel like I’m gonna fail 5th grade because I can’t like catch up with my stuff,” Yasmeenah said.

Eliyona showed 19 News the text messages between herself and Yasmeenah’s teacher. The texts contained worry, and requests from Mom to separate the two students because of the bullying.

“The staff has been aware all year that this is going on and whenever we brought it up to the school she got in trouble,” Eliyona said. “Then it’s got to the point where the children got away with this for so long, that they thought that they could attack her and beat her up.”

19 News has reached out to the Orchard Park Academy for a statement on the incident.

We also reached out to Cleveland Police to see if they are considering pressing charges or furthering the investigation.