• Gunman livestreams shootings that left 49 dead
• Four Pakistanis among 48 wounded, five still missing
• PM Ardern calls it ‘one of the darkest days of New Zealand’

WELLINGTON: At least 49 people were shot dead and 48 others, including four Pakistanis, wounded during Friday prayers in a ghastly attack on two New Zealand mosques that shocked the world as it was live-streamed on social media after the attacker had apparently published a “manifesto” denouncing immigrants.

Forty-one people were killed at Al Noor mosque in the Christchurch city, seven at a nearby mosque in the Linwood neighbourhood and one died in hospital, police said. Hospitals said children were among the victims. The Bangladesh cricket team narrowly escaped the attack as they were about to enter the mosque when the gunman wearing a helmet started shooting at everyone inside, according to witnesses.

New Zealand was placed on its highest security threat level with all mosques across the country being temporarily closed and flights at Christchurch cancelled amid heightened security after the incident that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said “can now only be described as a terrorist attack”. She said it was “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”. Later at a news conference, she said: “What has happened here is an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence.”

A man who claimed responsibility for the shootings earlier left a 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto, explaining his reasoning for the attack. He said he was a 28-year-old white Australian and a racist.

Police said they detained three people, including one in his late 20s, who had been charged with murder. He will appear in court on Saturday. Australian PM Scott Morrison confirmed that one of the people detained was an Australian-born citizen.

The footage widely circulated on social media, apparently taken by the gunman and posted live as the attack unfolded, showed him driving to one mosque, entering it and shooting at people inside. Worshippers, possibly dead or wounded, lay huddled on the floor, the video showed.

Four Pakistanis hurt, five missing

Four Pakistanis were injured and being treated in hospitals, while five Pakistanis were missing, said Pakistan Foreign Office.

Identities are being authenticated in consultation with local authorities, FO spokesperson tweeted.

Three Bangladeshis were among the dead and one was missing, their consulate confirmed. Two Malaysians and three Afghans were among the wounded. Also, six Indonesians had been inside one of the mosques, with three managing to escape and three unaccounted for, its foreign minister said.

Further nationalities could be among the casualties.

Witness accounts

A witness at Al Noor mosque told the media the gunman wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest burst into the mosque as people were kneeling for prayers. “He had a big gun ... he came and started shooting everyone in the mosque, everywhere,” said Ahmad Al-Mahmoud. He said he and others escaped by breaking through a glass door.

The online footage, which appeared to have been captured on a camera strapped to the gunman’s head, showed him parking his vehicle, taking out two guns and walking a short distance to the mosque where he opened fire. Over the course of five minutes, he repeatedly shot people, leaving more than a dozen bodies in one room alone. He returned to the car during that period to change guns, and went back to the mosque to shoot anyone showing signs of life.

One man, with blood still on his shirt, said in a TV interview that he hid from a gunman under a bench and prayed that he would run out of bullets. “I was just praying to God and hoping our God, please, let this guy stop,” Mahmood Nazeer told TVNZ.

“The firing went on and on. One person with us had a bullet in her arm. When the firing stopped, I looked over the fence, there was one guy, changing his gun.” The video showed the gunman then driving off at high speed and firing from his car. Another video, taken by someone else, showed police apprehending a gunman on a pavement by a road.

Police said improvised explosive devices were found. The gunman’s video had shown red petrol canisters in the back of his car, along with weapons.

The Bangladesh cricket team is in Christchurch to play New Zealand in a third cricket test starting on Saturday. “They were on the bus, which was just pulling up to the mosque when the shooting begun, Mario Villavarayen, a team coach, told Reuters in a message. “They are shaken but good.

The third cricket test was cancelled, New Zealand Cricket said later.

Violent crime is rare in New Zealand and police do not usually carry guns. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, the head of state of New Zealand, said she was deeply saddened by the shootings.

Before Friday, New Zealand’s worst mass shooting was in 1990 when a trigger-happy loner killed 13 men, women and children in a 24-hour rampage in the tiny seaside village of Aramoana. He was later killed by police.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2019