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Mourners in Lahore, Pakistan, attend a candlelight vigil on March 16, 2019, in aid of the victims of the attacks at the New Zealand mosque. (Mohsin Raza / Reuters)
Forty years ago, Haji Daoud Nabi fled the war in his native Afghanistan and resettled his family to New Zealand.
In his new home, he would come to run an Afghan badociation, host other refugees and go to the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, where he was generally sitting in the front row, his son told the press.
But Friday, Nabi, 71, was late, so he sat in the back, which placed him in the forefront of New Zealand's deadliest shootout in recent history. .
When an armed man stormed the mosque just before the start of evening prayers, Nabi would have protected a family friend from the shot, his son told reporters.
The friend survived; Nabi no.
"There are no words," Nabi's son Omar Nabi told the local Newshub news agency. "People prayed, people prayed in their mosque. They were shot in the back. This is not it. . . it's not what humans do. "
At least 50 people were killed Friday in a rampage in two mosques in Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand. The suspect in the attacks, Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, was initially charged with killing 41 people in Al Noor and seven others at the Linwood Mosque, authorities said. Another victim died in a hospital. Saturday, the death toll was raised to 50 with the discovery of the body of a victim by shooting in one of the mosques.
People react instead of the shooting after the authorities abducted a police line outside Al Noor Mosque on March 16 in Christchurch, New Zealand. (Jorge Silva / Reuters)
Officials have not yet revealed the names of the 50 victims, but friends and family members have slowly begun to identify loved ones who died in the mosques. Among the victims are refugees and immigrants from several countries, high school students, toddlers, academics and leaders of local Muslim organizations.
Government officials confirmed that at least six Pakistanis, four Jordanians and four Egyptians are among the dead. The Saudi Embbady confirmed that two Saudi citizens were injured and that the family of another told the Al Arabiya news agency that he had died as a result of his injuries.
The New Zealand Red Cross maintains an online list of names of people who have not yet been identified. The list is color-coded: orange for "missing" and green for "I'm alive".
Survivors share poignant stories of those who ran the danger to save others. In the absence of information from officials, some have learned of the death of their loved ones by those who witnessed the mbadacre or the aftermath. Others, such as Haji Daoud Nabi's family, confirmed the death of their relatives or friends by watching the live video of the mbadacre.
Several local high school students were exempted from attending Friday prayers, school officials said in a statement. Sayyad Milne, 14, was in Al Noor when the shooting began.
"I lost my little boy," said his father, John Milne, at the New Zealand Herald. "I have not yet officially heard that it's gone, but I know it because it's been seen."
Milne said that someone had seen his son bleed – called "a brave little soldier" – on the floor of the mosque.
"It's so hard … to see him being shot by someone who cared nothing and nobody," Milne told the Herald, "I know where he is. He is at peace. "
Two members of a family of Syrian refugees were killed in the mbadacre and a third was injured, confirmed Syrian Solidarity New Zealand organization. Khaled Mustafa and his Hamza, 14, were killed in the shooting, the organization said. Another son, Zaid, 13, underwent a six-hour operation without knowing that his father and brother were killed.
Mustafa arrived in New Zealand with his wife, two sons and daughter in 2018, said Syrian Solidarity.
"It is deeply sad that these refugees came from Syria to New Zealand, thinking that it was a safe haven," Syrian Solidarity's Ali Akil told Newshub. "They escaped the death and torture in Syria to come to New Zealand and get killed here."
Abdulrahman Hashi, 60, a preacher at the Dar Al Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis, told The Washington Post that his 4-year-old nephew was among those killed. He received a phone call on Friday morning from his brother-in-law Adan Ibrahin Dirie, who was in the hospital with gunshot wounds. Dirie was worshiping in Christchurch that morning with her five children when the shooter opened fire. Four of his children escaped unharmed, but the youngest, Abdullahi, was killed.
The family fled Somalia in the mid-1990s as a refugee and resettled in New Zealand.
"You can not imagine how I feel," he says. "He was the youngest of the family." He stated that he had preached against extremism and terrorism during Friday prayers. "It's a problem of extremism. Some people think that Muslims in their country are part of it, but they are innocent. "
Adeeb Sami's trip to New Zealand was supposed to be a joyous experience – a chance for the father, based in Dubai, to surprise his twins in time for their birthday.
The 52-year-old journalist plunged in front of his two sons to protect them from an armed man, then underwent surgery to remove a bullet from his spine, reported Gulf News.
"My father is a true hero," Sami's daughter, Heba, told Gulf News on Friday. "He was shot in the back near his spine to try to protect my brothers, but he left them nothing."
Heba told the Dubai-based press that she had lost five family friends, including a 12-year-old boy, in the attack.
The gunman broadcast live attack on social media. In a horrific video, the attacker approached the entrance of the mosque and lifted his weapon. A man tries to greet him by shouting "Hello, my brother." Then the shooter opens fire. In addition to the 50 people killed in both mosques, dozens of others have been injured or are missing.
Shafiqur Rahman Bhuiyan, Honorary Consul of Bangladesh in Auckland, New Zealand, told the Associated Press that at least three Bangladeshi were among the victims of the attack and that they were "deadly". others had been injured. "A leg of a wounded [person] he had to be amputated while another was shot in the chest, "he said.
[With strobe lights and guns bearing neo-Nazi slogans, New Zealand gunman plotted a mbadacre]
On Facebook, a user named Alta Marie said that her husband, Zulfirman Syah, and her son had both been shot dead at the Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch. "I recently joined my son, who was shot in the leg and back," she wrote. "He is traumatized, but we are all alive."
Asim Mukhtar, secretary general of the Pakistani Association of New Zealand, said during a phone call to The Post that the Al Noor Mosque was the largest in Christchurch and that the shooting had started 15 minutes before Friday prayers, while many people were still in the parking lot. walk to the mosque. If the shooting started in the middle of the prayer, he said, the death toll would have been higher.
"It is a time of distress, we are in disarray, we do not know why it happened," he said. "It's probably the last thing we think we're going to live in New Zealand that will ever happen."
"We really do not feel safe right now," he added.
[In one day, more people were killed in New Zealand than are usually murdered in an entire year]
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the confirmed deaths in Pakistan concerned Naeem Rashid, 48, and his 21-year-old parent, Talha Naeem, reported the Associated Press.
Yasmin Ali told New Zealand News in New Zealand that she had lost a close family friend whom she loved very much as a grandfather and now fears being targeted for wearing her headscarf in public. .
"Friends of the family we have known for 19 years – dead. People who were there for my engagement – dead, "said Ali at the press briefing. "You do not think anything like this can happen in New Zealand, in Christchurch and elsewhere."
Alexandra Baumhardt in Minneapolis and Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.
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