Christchurch mosque shooting: The victims and the missing from the mosque massacre

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.

“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 Saturday 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 anymore.”

Hundreds of locals went looking for loved ones on lists at Christchurch’s central hospital or standing vigil outside the mosques, sealed by police tape several hundreds metres back.

Police were only removing the bodies from the mosques for formal identification late Saturday.

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.”

Wasseim Alsati, originally from Jordan, posted a video from his hospital bed.

The barber was hit four times during the shooting, and his five-year-old daughter was hit three times. She is reportedly in a stable condition.

Mr Alsati thanked his friends and family for their support and apologises for being unable to respond to the calls and text messages he has received since the attack.

“Please pray for me and for my daughter, hopefully she will be so much better,” he said.

The family of Hussain Al-Umari, 35, are also still waiting for word.

“We love you Hussain. If he dies it’s a holy Friday and he’ll be safe with God.”

Bangladesh’s honorary consul in Auckland, Shafiqur Rahman Bhuiyan, said three Bangladeshis were among those killed and four or five others were wounded, including two left in critical condition.

“One leg of an injured needed to be amputated while another suffered bullet injuries in his chest,” Rahman Bhuiyan said. He declined to identify the dead or wounded. One is believed to be Dr MD Abdus Samad, an agricultural economics professor who migrated to New Zealand a decade ago with his wife and two sons. His family was unhurt.

Bangladeshi woman Husna Ara was with her paraplegic husband at prayers and were segregated as is standard for the sexes in a mosque but she rushed out 15 minutes into the shooting to save her husband Farid. She was killed trying to reach him, other worshippers wheeled him to safety.

Two Jordanians were among those killed, while eight others were wounded. Two Indonesians, a father and son, were also among those shot and wounded at Linwood. The unidentified man’s wife Alta Marie took to social media to allay fears from loved ones to announce they were alive but injured.

“My husband was shot in multiple places and has a drain in his lung,” she wrote on Facebook. She said she was with her son, who is “traumatised” after being shot in his back and leg.

Mohammed Elyan, a Jordanian in his 60s who co-founded a mosque after arriving in New Zealand in 1993, was among those wounded, as was his son, Atta, who is in his 30s.

Malaysian Rahimi Ahmad was at Friday prayers with his 11-year-old son when the shooting started.

His wife Norazila Wahid, 39, told the family that doctors had removed bullets from Rahimi’s abdomen and that he is in “critical condition,” the Malay Mail reports.

It’s not clear what happened to their son.

Afghan father of five and retired engineer Haji Daud Nabi, 71, and Pakistani Naeem Rashid have also been confirmed killed.

Mr Nabi’s sons Omar and Yama shared photos of their father yesterday as a tribute as they stood outside court where the man who allegedly killed their father was appearing before a judge.

A Facebook appeal was issued for Lilik Abdul Hamid but it has since been confirmed he also died.

Teacher Mr Rashid was being hailed a hero after attempting to wrestle the gun to save a friend during the melee. His 21-year-old son Talha is also believed to have died.

Omar Nabi said his father died trying to save others.

“I think he ran into that firing order to save somebody,” he said. “He would do things like this. Just helping people is his main thing. It makes me feel like he wanted other people to live.”

He said he could not believe something like this could happen in New Zealand.

Others still missing include Vora Ramiz, 28, Kamel Darwish and former Muslim Association of Canterbury secretary Abdelfattah Qasem.

Those missing have been listed are countries including Jordan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

At least four people from Somalia were killed.

The organisation Syrian Solidarity New Zealand said at least one Syrian refugee was killed.

Bangladesh’s honorary consul in Auckland said at least three Bangladeshis had been killed and at least four were injured.

See the list on the NZ Red Cross website.