Darwin mosque showered with love
THE horrific attacks in Christchurch were barely over when the first bunch of flowers and message of condolence made its way to the Darwin mosque in Wanguri.
By lunchtime yesterday, flowers filled the table beside the mosque as leaders of the local Islamic community met, fearful that if a random attack could take place in a peaceful city such as Christchurch, it could happen anywhere.
The flowers, they said, were symbols of love, while the attack was a symbol of hate.
Meanwhile, Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant faced Christchurch District Court on a single murder charge over the worst massacre in New Zealand’s history.
The 28-year-old didn’t say anything but made a subtle “white power” symbol with his fingers. NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited the city as the death toll remained at 49.
KHAJA Mohiuddin went to the Linwood Avenue mosque last Friday, much the same way he had done every week for 10 years since he moved to Christchurch from his native home in Hyderabad in India.
“I just went there to pray like I have always done,” he told News Corp yesterday.
“We were in there and praying then we heard this sound like someone was banging the cars, some usual vandal thing, like breaking car windows or something, and we thought ‘OK that’s easy we just get the car windows fixed’.
“That is what we all thought, then one of our group went to see … we never believed it could be gun shots but then … we saw. My friend who I always go with, we got separated. I hid. He is dead.
“We were always together before, every day and now we are not. We prayed together now we can’t.”
The 30-year-old, who declined to reveal his friend’s name out of respect for his family, spent much of yesterday at the hospital looking for other friends. He found one who remained in critical condition with a bullet lodged in his collarbone and the other just shot in the side and in satisfactory condition.
“We all talk about this thing, none of us can believe it could happen … I escaped with nothing, not injured, my friends are dead and injured. I don’t know what to think.”
Yesterday, hundreds of locals looked for loved ones on lists at Christchurch’s central hospital or stood vigil at the mosques, sealed by police tape several hundred metres back.
Police were only late yesterday removing the bodies from the mosques for formal identification.
Little consolation for Abdi Ibrahim, who has been looking for his three-year-old brother Mucab since the shooting. Mucab had been at the Al Noor Mosque on nearby Deans Avenue with their father when the shooting started.
Their father was wounded and is in hospital but Mucab is nowhere to be seen.
“Everyone is saying he is dead, he died at the mosque but we don’t know,” he said. He wasn’t the only child. Fourteen-year-old Sayyad Milne, had dreams of being a football player and now his family is being told he was most likely killed but he has yet to be positively identified.
Until they can see his body they will not believe he is dead.
“They’re all at home just waiting. They’re just waiting and they don’t know what to do,” his half sister Brydie Henry told local media.
“They were good people, just living good lives. It’s just awful …
“He’s a regular, typical, Kiwi kid…. He was a loving and kind brother and will be greatly missed.”