New Zealand Muslims wait for victims' bodies

Investigators rush so that burials can begin

Workers prepare graves today at a Muslim cemetery in Christ-church, New Zealand, as families get ready to bury victims of Friday’s mass shooting.
Workers prepare graves today at a Muslim cemetery in Christ-church, New Zealand, as families get ready to bury victims of Friday’s mass shooting.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand -- Thousands of people paid tribute Sunday at makeshift memorials to the 50 people slain at two mosques in Christchurch, while dozens of Muslims stood by to bury the dead when authorities finally release the victims' bodies.

Hundreds of flowers were piled up amid candles, balloons and notes of grief and love outside the Al Noor mosque and the city's botanic gardens. As a light rain fell, people clutched one another 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. 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.

"We have to be absolutely clear on the cause of death and confirm their identity before that can happen," Bush added. "But we are so aware of the cultural and religious needs. So we are doing that as quickly and as sensitively as possible."

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 -- Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28 -- 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. Another seven people were killed at a mosque in Linwood, a suburb of Christchurch, 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.

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."

U.S. RESPONSE

The acting White House chief of staff said Sunday that there is no sign of a conspiracy in the mosque attacks, 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," Mick 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's 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." In a manifesto released the day of the killings, Trump was singled out as "a symbol of white identity and common purpose," though not as an effective "policy maker and leader."

"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." The killings were shown on Facebook and other social media via a body-mounted camera.

"I think that's where the time is better spent," Mulvaney said. "Instead of worrying about, 'Well, who's to blame,' how do we stop [people] from doing this? Donald Trump is no more to blame for what happened in New Zealand than Mark Zuckerberg," the chief executive officer of Facebook.

But moderator Margaret Brennan noted that during the 2016 campaign, Trump "called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. He said Islam hates us. This kind of language in the past leads to these questions."

Mulvaney disagreed, saying "take the words and put them in one category, and take the actions and put them in another."

"Folks say, 'Oh, Donald Trump said this during the campaign.' Look at what we've done while we've been here," Mulvaney said. "I don't think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim."

Trump on Friday said white supremacists are a "a small group of people that have very, very serious problems." Opponents criticized that stance, contending that the president was treating white supremacists as individuals while enforcing travel bans on most residents of seven Muslim-majority nations.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., urged the president to look at data on the rise of white supremacy groups in the United States.

"There's too many deaths," Tlaib, one of three Muslim lawmakers in the House, said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. She said the president was the "most powerful man in the world right now" and that he should deliver a message of support to the Muslim community in the wake of the New Zealand attack.

"The fact that we continue to stay silent is what's going to make us as a country less safe," Tlaib said.

'NEVER FELT SCARED'

In Linwood, the site of the second mosque attack, trees in one street were painted with images of hearts, and occasional posters with messages of solidarity.

A woman in her 60s who didn't give her name said her grief was deepened by memories of time spent with members of the Afghan community, in particular a Hajji Daoud Nabi, a much-admired elder who helped newly arrived Muslim families. He died in the attack, reportedly shielding a friend.

"He was so respected, a lovely man. I'm sorry I don't have any other words," she said.

Karishma, 29, a Linwood local from a Hindu family, said she felt fearful for the first time since she arrived in New Zealand three years ago.

Speaking beside a group of friends, one of whom was wearing a hijab, she said: "I had never felt scared before in my life here. It's a safe country. It's scary for us now."

After an initial pledge by Ardern to update the country's gun-control laws, New Zealand Attorney General David Parker said at a vigil Saturday that semi-automatic weapons would be banned. Officials later demurred, saying more debate and analysis would be needed before new laws were adopted.

However, Ardern on Sunday reiterated her promise that there will be changes to the country's gun laws, saying her Cabinet will discuss the policy details today. She said gun laws need to change and "they will change."

At a branch of Gun City in Wellington, New Zealand's capital, two protesters, Michelle Genet and Mary Lochore, held up signs decrying that the shop was open -- and selling AR-style rifles -- two days after the massacre.

"People should show some respect," said Lochore, 73. "How hard is it to be closed for the weekend?"

In the store, an American, who declined to give his name, was browsing the selection of semi-automatic weapons. The man, who lives in New Zealand, said he was "not worried" about the potential ban and commented that America was the "best country in the world" because of its gun laws.

Information for this article was contributed by Nick Perry, Juliet Williams, Kristen Gelineau, Stephen Wright and Rod McGuirk of The Associated Press; by Shibani Mahtani, Emanuel Stoakes, Brett Cole, Aaron Patrick, Shane Harris and Felicia Sonmez of The Washington Post; and by Ben Brody, Mark Niquette and Hailey Waller of Bloomberg News.

photo

AP/VINCENT THIAN

Members of Muslim religious groups leave today after a special blessing ceremony near the site of Friday’s shooting outside the Linwood mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.

photo

AP/VINCENT THIAN

A card reading, “That’s enough! We are all equal. Peace!” is placed next to toy sheep today by mourners at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand.

A Section on 03/18/2019

Upcoming Events