Emotional students sing of hope and unity

CHRISTCHURCH students touched the distraught families of the mosque attacks victims, performing a haka designed to reassure them they belonged in New Zealand and singing for them a song of hope, faith and love.

Mele Peseta, 17, who led Christchurch Girls High School singing E Tora Nga Mea, was soon overcome with emotion as women from the grieving Muslim community stepped forward to hug the girls as they sang.

The song was followed by a bespoke haka performed by Christchurch Boys High School, which a teacher said was designed to show that “the pain of Christchurch echoes through everyone regardless of ethnicity”.

As families awaited news on when the bodies of all 50 victims would finally be released, it was revealed by witnesses that accused killer Brenton Tarrant did not locate the female section at the rear of Al Noor Mosque that was full of women and children, averting an even greater toll.

“The killer didn’t find the kids with their mums,” said Mehedi, who flew in from Auckland to offer support.

In a remarkable show of strength, a wheelchair-bound man, whose wife Husna Ahmed, 45, was shot in the back while shielding him in the Al Noor Mosque, yesterday forgave the gunman.

Farid Ahmed said he did not, and could not, hate Tarrant.

“I was asked ‘how do you feel about the person who killed your wife?’ and I said ‘I love that person because he is a human, a brother of mine,” he told The New Zealand Herald.

“I do not support what he did … he got it wrong.

“But maybe he was hurt, maybe something happened to him in his life … but the bottom line is, he is a brother of mine. I have forgiven him and I am sure if my wife was alive she would have done the same thing. I hold no grudge.”