Police name dozens of New Zealand mosque massacre victims

New Zealandpolice have identified dozens of victims from the March 15shootings attwo mosques in Christchurch.

The attacks during Friday prayers took the lives of 50worshippers and left dozens more wounded when a man believed to be a white supremacistopened fire and live streamed the shootings.

Many of the victims had moved to New Zealand to seek better lives in a country known for its beauty, friendliness and safety. Among the victims are engineers, business owners, students and a goalkeeper for the national futsal team a modified form of soccer, typically played indoors.

Masjid Al-Noor mosque victims

The gunman targeted the Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch during Friday prayers while imam Gamal Fouda was delivering a sermon about co-operating with each other, doing good and stopping evil.

There were so many bodies piled at themosque after the massacre that it tookpolice more than a day to find all of them. In all, 42 people were killed there.

The youngest of the victims wasMucaad Ibrahim, 3. He had an intelligence beyond his years, a friend said. And he loved watching his big brother play soccer.

The dead identified by police are:

• Muse NurAwale, 77.
• HajiMohemmedDaoudNabi, 71.
• HusseinMohamedKhalilMoustafa, 70.
• Ahmed Gamal Eldin Mohamed Abdel Ghany, 68.
• MounirGuirgisSoliman, 68.
• Ali Mah'd Abdullah Elmadani, 66.
• MuhammadAbdusSamad, 66.
• Abdukadir Elmi, 65.
• MohsenMohammed AlHarbi, 63.
• Abdelfattah Qasem, 60.
• Ashraf Ali, 58.
• Lilik Abdul Hamid, 57.
• Amjad Kasem Hamid, 57.
• Matiullah Safi, 55.
• Ashraf El-Moursy Raghed, 55.
• HusnaAhmed, 44.
• Haroon Mahmood, 40.
• Syed Jahandad Ali, 39.
• KamelMoh'dKamalKamelDarwish, 38.
• Osama Adnan Yousef Abukwaik, 37.
• JunaidIsmail, 36.
• Muhammad Suhail Shahid, 36.
• Ata Mohammad AtaElayyan, 33.
• MD MojammelHoq, 30.
• Farhaj Ahsan, 30.
• Ramiz ArifbhaiVora, 28.
• Syed Areeb Ahmed, 26.
• Ansi Karippakulam Alibava, 25.
• Ozair Kadir, 24.
• Tariq Rashid Omar, 24.
• Muhammad HaziqMohd-Tarmizi, 17.
• Hamza Khaled Alhaj Mustafa, 16.
• Sayyad AhmadMilne, 14.
• MucaadIbrahim, 3.

Linwood mosque victims

The gunman drove to the Linwood mosque after the rampage at Al-Noor,about fivekilometres away.

The mosque is located in a plain building, in a poor neighbourhood, where about 80 people were immersed in prayer at the time.

Seven people were killed there.One more person 44-year-oldKhaled Mwafak Alhaj-Mustafalater died at Christchurch Hospital, pushing the totaldeath toll to 50.

The dead at the Linwood identified by police are:

• Ghulam Hussain, 66.
• Linda Susan Armstrong, 64.
• Karam Bibi, 63.
• Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 59.
• Mohamad Moosid Mohamedhosen, 54.
• Muhammad Zeshan Raza, 38.

Identified by family, friends

Several other people not yet identified by police were also among the dead, according to relatives.

As the shootings unfolded at Al-Noor, 50-year-old Naeem Rashid is seen on video trying to tackle the gunman, according to Rashid's brother, Khurshid Alam.

Rashid's son, Talha Rashid, was also among the dead, according to a tweet from Pakistan's Ministry of Public Affairs.

Husne Ara Parvin, 41, died while trying to shield her wheelchair-bound husband, Farid Uddin Ahmed, her nephew Mahfuz Chowdhury told The Daily Star, a newspaper in Bangladesh.The Bangladeshi couple had moved to New Zealand sometime after 1994,Chowdhurysaid.

Four-year-old Abdullahi Dirie was the youngest offive siblings and the only one who did not survive the attack,his uncle Abdulrahman Hashi, 60, a preacher at Dar Al Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis told the New Zealand Herald. It was not immediately clear which mosque Parvin, Ahmed andAbdullahi were in during the attack.

Hussein al-Umari,an Iraqi who was born in Abu Dhabi, was killed in the attack,his mother wrote on social media. His family and friends had been seeking information on al-Umari, in his mid-30s, after he failed to return from Friday prayers at the Al-Noor mosque.

Additionally, Junaid Mortara, 35, is believed by his cousin tohavedied in the first mosque attack;Ali Elmadani, aretired Christchurch engineer who emigrated from the United Arab Emirates, was killed, according to his daughter;Indian news reported that25-year-old Ansi Alibava, who moved to New Zealand after getting married to her husband,was killed; and local restaurateurMohamed Imran Khan was remembered by the proprietor of a neighbouring convenience storeas a "really good guy."