A Saudi Arabian student has died in the United States after being assaulted in what police are currently investigating as a homicide.
Hussain Saeed Alnahdi was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He was leaving a pizza restaurant in downtown Menomonie, Wisconsin at 2 a.m. on Sunday when he was assaulted by a tall white man, who fled the scene following the attack.
Alnahdi was unconscious and bleeding from his mouth and nose when police found him. The authorities transported him to Mayo Clinic Health System in Menomonie. He was then transported by helicopter to Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire before dying from his injuries.
Bob Meyer, the UW-Stout chancellor, shared the university's condolences via an official Facebook page and urged any students with information to immediately speak with authorities.
"It is with much sadness that I inform the campus that Hussain Saeed Alnahdi, 24, a junior majoring in business administration, passed away this afternoon from injuries suffered early Sunday morning during an assault in downtown Menomonie," Meyer said in the post.
"Our deepest sympathies, thoughts and prayers go out to Hussain's family in Buraydah, Saudi Arabia, and his friends at UW-Stout."
"I want to make a personal appeal to anyone on campus or in the community who might have information that would help authorities locate the individual involved in the attack to come forward," he wrote.
The attack comes as hate crimes against Muslims are reportedly on the rise in the U.S. Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric has featured prominently in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign season, with Republican nominee Donald Trump calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the country.
Saudi Arabia has been sending students to study in the U.S. for decades, with around 125,000 Saudis currently studying abroad in the country. Currently, the U.S. has the highest number of Saudi students of any other country in the world, according to a report by Arab News.