A 12-year-old Bronx girl was shot in the stomach and foot in possible gang crossfire after gunmen yelled “Ewok!”, then called her sister saying she was hit.
Maya Alamouri wanted only to meet a friend at a park in Westchester Square. Around 8:30 p.m. Monday, gunmen opened fire near Tratman Avenue between Rowland Street and St. Peters Avenue, next to The Pearly Gates Park, and the child was caught in the middle.
Bullets struck her stomach and right foot. She phoned her 14-year-old sister at once. Masked shooters had been yelling “Ewok! Ewok!” before the rounds flew, the New York Post reported after speaking with the family.
Law-enforcement sources tied that chant to the Makk Ballas, also known as the Mac Ballers or Mac Baller Brims, a street gang linked to the Bloods and described as one of the most dangerous in the city. Authorities said the gunmen appeared to have spotted rivals and opened fire. Cops have not released any suspect names.
Miral Alamouri, 14, had left Maya only minutes earlier. Then the phone rang.
She told the Post on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, what her little sister said.
"She was like, 'I got shot! Oh, I’m scared,' and I’m trying to keep her awake because you don’t want her to go to sleep and get into a coma."
Miral kept talking. Maya drifted in and out of consciousness. The older sister stayed on the line and tried to hold her there.
"So I’m just talking to her, keeping her awake."
Doctors later operated on Maya’s abdomen and found holes in her colon. Her right foot was fractured. Surgeons planned to fix the foot only after the stomach wounds stabilized.
Miral described the medical picture plainly.
"Her right foot is fractured, so they’re gonna have to do surgery on that. They are waiting for her stomach to be fine before they get started on her leg."
The shooting landed three days before Maya’s birthday. Miral said she was praying her sister would be all right.
"I’m just praying for her to be fine. That’s my little sister, and her birthday is about to be in a few days."
The family did not want a photo of the wounded child released. Fear sat over the household. Miral put the broader point in blunt terms.
"It’s always the wrong person at the wrong time, and that shouldn’t be happening."
She added what any parent or sibling should be able to take for granted in a city park.
"You go to the park to sit there and play with your friends, not to get shot."
The call itself still stunned her.
"It’s so crazy to get that call," she said. "That’s not a call you would expect from your sibling. I had just left her minutes prior to that."
Miral did not dress up the cause. She pointed at kids and young adults with firearms they should never have held.
"I just want them to stop giving children or young adults access to weapons because they don’t know how to use them. They keep using it to target people, shoot people."
NYPD placed the shooting at the Westchester Square park site Monday evening. No arrests or named suspects have been announced. The “possible” gang label remains the working frame from law-enforcement sources who linked the “Ewok!” chant to the Mac Baller set.
Maya went to a public park to see a friend. Masked gunmen turned that ordinary errand into abdominal surgery, a shattered foot, and a phone call that began with “I got shot.”
A 12-year-old should not need her sister to keep her from slipping into unconsciousness after a Bronx park visit. When gang chants and rival hunts decide who bleeds on the playground, lawful families pay the price while the shooters melt back into the dark.
