Mourners pay tribute in New Zealand

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — A steady stream of mourners paid tribute Sunday at a makeshift memorial to the 50 people slain by a gunman at two mosques in Christchurch.

Hundreds of flowers were piled up amid candles, balloons and notes of grief and love outside the Al Noor mosque. As a light rain fell, people clutched each other and wept quietly.

“We wish we knew your name to write upon your heart. We wish we knew your favorite song, what makes you smile, what makes you cry,” read one of the tributes,

which contained cutout paper hearts under a nearby tree. “We made a heart for you. 50 hearts for 50 lives.”

Two days after Friday’s attack, New Zealand’s deadliest shooting in modern history, relatives were still waiting for authorities to release the bodies. Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours.

Supporters arrived from across the country to help with the burials in Christchurch and authorities sent in backhoes to dig graves at a site that was newly fenced off and blocked from view with white netting.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said authorities hoped to release all the bodies by Wednesday, and Police Commissioner Mike Bush said authorities were working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they could.

Police said they had released a preliminary list of the victims to families, which has helped give closure to some who were waiting for any news.

The suspect in the shootings, 28-year-old white supremacist Brenton Harrison Tarrant, appeared in court Saturday amid strict security, shackled and wearing all-white prison garb, and showed no emotion when the judge read one murder charge and said more would likely follow.

Bush said at a news conference that another body had been found at Al Noor mosque as they finished removing the victims, bringing the number of people killed there to 42. An additional seven people were killed at Linwood mosque and one more person died later at Christchurch Hospital.

Thirty-four wounded remained at the hospital, where officials said 12 were in critical condition. A 4-year-old girl at a children’s hospital in Auckland was also listed as critical.

Dozens of Muslim supporters gathered at a center set up for victims, families and friends across the road from the hospital, where many had flown in from around New Zealand to offer support. About two dozen men received instructions on their duties Sunday, which included Muslim burial customs.

People across the country were still trying to come to terms with the massacre that Ardern described as “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.”

At the Vatican, Pope Francis offered prayers for “our Muslim brothers” killed in the attack. At his traditional Sunday prayer, Francis renewed “an invitation to unite in prayer and gestures of peace to oppose hatred and violence.”

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that there is no sign of a conspiracy in the mosque attacks that killed 50 people in New Zealand, and he rejected suggestions that President Donald Trump hasn’t spoken out against white supremacists.

“We have no indication that this is part of a larger conspiracy,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.” He said there’s been no proposal for added security around mosques in the U.S. in response to the “truly sorrowful and tragic event.”

Mulvaney appeared to be saying there is no plot extending beyond New Zealand, as he later noted there has been “concern that other folks might be involved down there.”

He blamed the attacks in Christchurch on “a disturbed individual, an evil person” and condemned as “absurd” the idea of connecting the killer and Trump’s hard-line rhetoric on immigrants and “Islamic terrorists.”

“The president is not a white supremacist,” Mulvaney said.

Mulvaney said in a separate appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the question is “how do you stop these crazy people” who are “willing to go on live TV and stream the murder of people.” He said “Donald Trump is no more to blame for what happened in New Zealand than Mark Zuckerberg,” the CEO of Facebook, whose platform the gunman used to livestream his killings.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Trump uses language often similar to that of racists and bigots, and if he’s not going to call them out, other leaders must. While Trump didn’t create white nationalists, his comments can encourage them, Kaine said.

“The president is using language that emboldens them,” Kaine said on “Face the Nation.”

Ardern has said Tarrant was a licensed gun owner who legally bought the five guns he used.

At a news conference, the prime minister reiterated her promise that there will be changes to the country’s gun laws. She said her Cabinet will discuss the policy details Monday.

The organizers of New Zealand’s largest gun show say they have canceled the event to show respect for victims of the Christchurch massacre and because of “elevated security risks.”

The Kumeu Militaria Show, near Auckland, has been held for about five years.

Ardern said banning private ownership of semiautomatic rifles, which were used in the attacks, is an option.

Arden used some of her strongest language yet about gun control, saying that laws need to change and “they will change.”

Neighboring Australia has virtually banned semiautomatic rifles from private ownership since a lone gunman killed 35 people with assault rifles in 1996.

Before Friday’s attack, New Zealand’s deadliest shooting in modern history took place in 1990 in the small town of Aramoana, where a gunman killed 13 people following a dispute with a neighbor.