Shooting survivor relives horror massacre
Ramzan Ali was praying.
Blood splashed onto his clothes and pooled beneath his body as he prayed to Allah the terrorist would run out of bullets.
His brother, Ashraf, had been visiting from Fiji, where he owned a taxi company in Suva.
Ashraf’s wife – his second – had died just a few months earlier. His first wife, with whom he had a child, had died four years earlier. He would come to Christchurch twice a year to see his family, and this was his first visit since his wife died.
While he was in Christchurch, Ashraf would pray at the Al Noor Mosque with his brother. They were both there on Friday. Ramzan was sitting on a bench at the back of the mosque when the sermon began, away from his brother.
Bullets started flying. The man sitting next to him screamed ‘‘Run, run’’, Ramzan told Stuff.
Ramzan decided to hide behind the bench, leaving his bottom half exposed to the shooter.
He stayed there until the shooting appeared to stop. He looked up and prepared to escape.
‘‘There was a guy sitting beside the wall, and he says bro, he’s coming. Then he [the gunman] shot him in the chest.’’
Ramzan was the last person to leave the mosque. He stumbled outside and waited at the cordon, so shaken he could barely speak, waiting to hear if his brother was alive.
The next day, Ramzan still did not know if his brother was in the hospital, or among the dead in the Al Noor Mosque.
Ramzan liked his brother, who was one of four. He was easygoing and even-tempered; if you told him something upsetting, he would remain calm, Ramzan said. It was Saturday morning when Ramzan learned a good friend of his had died at the Linwood mosque: ‘‘I lost one of my very great friends,’’ he said.
‘‘I’m thinking how his wife is going to manage. He was at the Linwood mosque and he was shot in the head.’’ He still didn’t know where his brother was. His niece sent him a video from an Australian media outlet. It was an excerpt from the gunman’s video, showing a pile of bodies.
‘‘When I saw the clip I went, oh man, the guy is shooting from close range, about half a metre,’’ Ramzan said.
He recognised the body lying limply on top.
It was Ashraf Ali, his younger brother, a ‘‘gentleman’’ who had now joined his wives in death.