River of Tears

Tragedy struck Harvard Law School this spring break when second-year law student Shirin Shakir was killed in a white-water rafting accident in Cuzco, Peru. A native of Manhasset Hills, N.Y. and an alumna of Williams College, Shakir was 24.

Shakir and fellow second-year law student Brendan J. Cooney were among six Law School students vacationing together in Peru over spring break. On March 31, the last day of the trip, the two decided to go white-water rafting down the Vilcanota River. Joining them were three other women and a male guide.

Cooney said in interviews that as the raft sped down the river, it struck a cluster of rapids and capsized and that all six rafters were tossed into the river. Cooney said he ended back up on the raft after the guide pulled him and one of the women from the river, but the other three “started to disappear” into the water.

Although another rafter was able to cling to a rock and was later pulled safely aboard, the group was unable to save Shakir and Brown University senior Alison Michener.

“We caught up to Shirin and pulled her out of the water,” Cooney told Newsday of Long Island, N.Y. “But it was too late.”

Family and friends remember Shakir as someone who was bright but humble and committed to using her gifts to improve society.

“She wanted to go into U.S. policy-making, to make a difference,” says Khadija Shakir, Shirin’s mother. “She was very humble, yet smart and beautiful.”

Shakir was also known for her lightheartedness.

“She refused to take herself seriously,” says Matthew A. Long, a fellow Law School student.

Childhood friend Lidia Rekas, who has known Shakir since the fifth grade, says that her last memory of Shakir was when she helped Rekas prepare for the Graduate Management Admissions Test.

“We stayed up all night and ate pizza, and I slept on her couch that night,” Rekas says. “Shirin’s absence leaves me with a huge hole in my heart.”

A frequent triathlon competitor, Rekas vows to dedicate her Ironman performance this July to Shakir, saying that she “will celebrate her life and her memory” during the race.

Shakir is the second Harvard student to die in an accident in Peru in recent years.

In June 2001, Haley S. Surti ’01 died in a bus crash in Peru just days after her graduation from the College. A writer for one of the Let’s Go travel guides, Surti’s death was the first and only fatality of a Let’s Go writer in the publication’s 45-year history.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.