New Zealand Shooting Updates: Everything We Know About The Victims And Suspected Shooter

"I’m not sure how to deal with this. Forgiving is going to take time."
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New Zealand is still reeling from the worst mass shooting in its history, allegedly carried out by a self-described racist who live streamed some of the attack online.

Brenton Tarrant has appeared in court charged with murder of 49 people, shot to death during Friday prayers at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.

Here’s what we know so far:

The victims 

An updated list of the victims as they’re named can be found at the end of this article.

At least 41 people were killed at the Masjid Al Noor mosque in central Christchurch while at least seven people died inside the suburban Linwood Masjid Mosque.

One person died in hospital. In all, a total of 49 people were killed in Friday’s shootings.

Four people died en route to the hospital.

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Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud in the mosque attacks, at the district court in Christchurch.
REUTERS/Edgar Su

The majority of the patients were said to be male, aged between 30 and 40, while two of them are boys aged two and 13.

A four-year-old girl was transferred to a hospital in Auckland in a critical condition.

Several of those killed or wounded were from countries in the Middle East or South Asiam including Jordan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey and Afghanistan.

Funerals were planned on Saturday for some of the victims.

The injuries

Twelve operating theatres worked through the night on the more than 40 people wounded, hospital authorities told Reuters..

Christchurch Hospital chief Greg Robertson, said: “We have had patients with injuries to most parts of the body that range from relatively superficial soft tissue injuries to more complex injuries involving the chest, the abdomen, the pelvis, the long bones and the head.

“Many of the people require multiple trips to the theatre to deal with the complex series of injuries they have.”

He said a two-year-old boy was in stable condition, as was a 13-year-old boy.

39 people remained in the care of Christchurch Hospital on Saturday, 11 of them in intensive care.

Seven of the injured have since been discharged.

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Mourners pay their respects at a makeshift memorial near the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand on Saturday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The suspected shooter

Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old from Australia, was charged with murder and appeared at a Christchurch court on Saturday morning.

He was remanded until 5 April. Police said further charges were expected to follow.

In the video livestreamed on Facebook on Friday, the man who claimed responsibility for the shooting said he came to New Zealand to plan and train for the attack. 

He said he was not a member of any organisation, but had donated to and interacted with many white nationalist groups. Although two other men and a woman have been detained in connection with the attack, he said he had acted alone and no group ordered the attack.

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Brenton Tarrant, charged for murder in relation to the mosque attacks, is led into the dock for his appearance in the Christchurch district court on Saturday.
POOL/Wire

Masjid Al Noor and Linwood Masjid mosques in Christchurch would be the targets, he said, as would a third mosque if he could make it there, the Press Association reports.

He said he chose New Zealand because of its location, to show that even the most remote parts of the world were not free of “mass immigration”.

The other suspects

Two others are in custody over the attacks and police are working to establish whether they had any involvement in the incident.

A fourth person arrested on Friday, who was in possession of a firearm but with the intention of assisting police, was released a short time later.

Police said they were not actively looking for any identified suspects but said “that doesn’t mean they don’t exist”.

The livestream video

The online footage, which appeared to have been captured on a camera strapped to a gunman’s head, showed him driving as music played in his vehicle. After parking, he took two guns and walked a short distance to the Masjid Al Noor mosque and opened fire.

The gunman spent more than two minutes inside the mosque, spraying terrified worshippers with bullets repeatedly. 

He then walks outside to the street, where he shoots at people on the pavement. Screams can be heard in the distance as he returns to his car to get another rifle.

At one point he says: “There wasn’t even time to aim, there was (sic) so many targets.” 

The gunman then walks back into the mosque, where there are at least two dozen people lying on the ground.

After walking back outside and shooting a woman, he gets back in his car, where the song Fire by English rock band The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown can be heard blasting from the speakers.

The singer bellows “I am the god of hellfire!” and the gunman drives away. The video then cuts out.

The man in the video also encouraged viewers to “subscribe to PewDiePie”, a controversial YouTube star who has since tweeted to distance himself from the attacks.

The manifesto

The manifesto cited “white genocide”, a term typically used by racist groups to refer to immigration and the growth of minority populations, as his motivation.

A Q&A section reads: “Were/are you a racist?”

“Yes, by definition, as I believe racial differences exist between peoples and they have a great impact on the way we shape our societies.”

Another asks: “Who are you?” The answer says: “Just a (sic) ordinary White man, 28 years old. Born in Australia to a working class, low income family.”

“My parents are of Scottish, Irish and English stock. I had a regular childhood, without any great issues. I had little interest in education during my schooling, barely achieving a passing grade.”

He adds: “I am just a regular White man, from a regular family. Who decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people.” 

He describes himself as “a private and mostly introverted person” and admits he is racist, adding that he is an “Eco-fascist by nature”.

Part of the manifesto cites “Darren Osbourne” – an apparent reference to Darren Osborne who drove a van into a crowd of worshippers leaving Finsbury Mosque in June 2017.

Listing other perpetrators of massacres, it reads: “I support many of those that take a stand against ethnic and cultural genocide. Luca Traini, Anders Breivik, Dylan Roof, Anton Lundin Pettersson, Darren Osbourne etc.”

Luca Traini, is a far-right extremist suspected of shooting six Africans in Italy in February 2018. The magazines also referenced multiple battles in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated.

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Flower rest at a road block, as a Police officer stands guard near the Linwood mosque, site of one of the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The weapons

Tarrant lived in Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island, and was a member of the Bruce Rifle Club, according to media reports which quoted club members saying he often practiced shooting an AR-15, which is a lightweight semi-automatic rifle.

The suspect held a Category A gun licence which enabled him to legally obtain semi-automatic weapons.

The firearms used in the mosque shootings appeared to have been modified. 

Two improvised explosive devices were found on a vehicle after the shootings and were defused by police.

New Zealand’s gun laws

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern reiterated her promise that gun laws would change in New Zealand, and said the firearms used in the mosque shootings appear to have been modified.

Police Association President Chris Cahill said the weapons used in the mosque shootings were banned in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 in which 35 people were gunned down.

The AR-15 was used at Port Arthur, as well as a number of high-profile mass shootings in the United States.

Arden said: “New Zealanders will question how someone can come into being in possession of weapons of this nature.”

She added: “Our gun laws will change.”

The victims that have been identified so far

Haji Daoud Nabi, 71

Daoud Nabi was the first victim to be identified, a grandfather who died trying to save someone else from a bullet, his son Omar told NBC News.

He was an engineer who moved with his family to New Zealand in the 1980s after the Soviet Union invaded their home country of Afghanistan.

Nabi worked with other refugees to New Zealand, helping the, navigate their new country and even greeted them at the airport when they arrived.

“Whether you’re from Palestine, Iraq, Syria — he’s been the first person to hold his hand up,” Omar Nabi told NBC News. 

“I’m not sure how to deal with this. Forgiving is going to take time.”

Abdus Samad and Kishowara Begum

Husband and wife Abdus Samad and Kishowara Begum both died in the shooting.

According to BDNews24.com, Abdus was a professor and former faculty member of the Bangladesh Agriculture University.

His younger brother Habibur Rahman, said their elder brother had died during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in the early 1970s.

“Now we’ve lost another brother in terrorist attack,”

Hosne Ara Parvin

Hosne Ara Parvin, 42, reportedly died while trying to save her husband, who was in a wheelchair, according to the United News of Bangladesh.

Parvin was in the female prayer section of the mosque when the shooting began, according to the United News.

She is reported to have fled toward her husband but was fatally shot.