Shooter ‘aimed at 4-year-old’s head’
Dad Wasseim Alsati says the Christchurch shooter aimed for his four-year-old daughter Alen Daraghmih’s head as they stood outside Masjid Al Noor.
Speaking with RNZ, he fought through his emotions to talk about his daughter’s ‘‘first time coming with me to the mosque’’ on March 15.
‘‘It was a very tough time what happened because that was her first time and I was so happy that she [was] coming with me,’’ he told RNZ’s
On arrival, Wasseim and Alen walked hand-in-hand towards the mosque. ‘‘We walked down, happy father and daughter, we hold hands, we run [a] couple of metres, and then I didn’t see anything different.’’
It was then they were confronted with a friend running out of the mosque yelling, ‘‘Wasseim, run’’.
Unsure of what was happening, Wasseim told RNZ he saw what he thought was someone from the military walking out of the mosque.
But the shooter wasn’t looking at him, his eyesight was lower. ‘‘I saw his eyes looking straight to my hands, like straight to her head.’’
He lifted his young daughter by the hand to try and protect her. The first bullet hit her bottom, the second her stomach, and the third her toes. Wasseim believes ‘‘he was planning to hit her in the head’’.
He threw his daughter between the footpath and a car for protection and threw himself next to her. He witnessed another woman get shot and says the shooter drove over another victim in the street. He put his head to the ground and pretended to be dead.
Afterwards, as strangers rushed over, Wasseim urged them to help his daughter. ‘‘She’s bleeding, please take her to the hospital,’’ he pleaded.
He was telling his daughter ‘‘you okay, don’t worry,’’ as he watched her body change colour and begin to convulse.
Arriving separately at the hospital, Wasseim feared the worst. ‘‘I told the doctors I’m okay, I’m fine, just save my daughter.’’
He was screaming the same things repeatedly: where was his daughter and where was his friend – futsul player Atta Elayyan who was killed inside Masjid Al Noor. Speaking about his first friend in New Zealand, Wasseim told RNZ, ‘‘he’s gonna stay with us, Atta, he’s not dead’’.
Alen is currently in Auckland’s Starship Children’s Hospital with brain damage. Her father said she is conscious though unresponsive and doesn’t recognise her parents.
Wasseim said his daughter cannot see or hear and is unable to move one of the legs where she was hit.
Wasseim admitted his family were afraid to return home to Christchurch, but the love, support and generosity from strangers has given them the strength to go back.