If you Google Merrylands and hit the news tab, you’ll read dozens of headlines about shootings and gang warfare.

The western Sydney suburb is the birthplace of the notorious Alameddine crime network, and it’s the original postcode of rapper Ali Younes, aka Ay Huncho, whose family home in Merrylands was sprayed with more than 20 bullets last month.

Crime has sunk its teeth into the suburb for decades. It’s an element of Merrylands that many residents have told the Herald is difficult to ignore, but one that shouldn’t define the suburb.

For 18-year-old law student Asiya Rahimi – whose family fled war-torn Afghanistan when she was 10 and who now calls Merrylands home – the suburb is more than its headlines.

“Crime happens everywhere across Sydney, and when something small happens here

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