Khaled Mustafa, 44, and Hamza, 16, were mown down when a white supremacist burst in and killed worshippers at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. They were the first of 50 victims to be laid to rest after the killing spree, which the gunman broadcast live on Facebook. The Mustafa family arrived in New Zealand last year after spending six years as refugees in Jordan.
Mr Mustafa’s wife Salwa said that when the family first inquired about their new home they were told it was “the safest country in the world”. She added: “But it wasn’t.”
The couple’s younger son Zaid, 13, who was injured in the attack, watched the burials from a wheelchair.
Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be buried as soon after death as possible.
But the funerals of the shooting victims have been delayed because of the painstaking nature of the police inquiry.
The first bodies were carried in open caskets on the shoulders of mourners into Christchurch’s Memorial Park Cemetery, where they were laid facing Mecca.
Most of those shot in the rampage were migrants or refugees from nations including Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
The youngest was a three-year-old boy born in New Zealand to Somali parents.
PM Jacinda Ardern, below left, has received global praise for her sensitive handling of what she described as “New Zealand’s darkest day” and said the country would hold two minutes of silence tomorrow, the Muslim day of prayer.
Ms Ardern, 38, also confirmed the Islamic call to prayer will be broadcast on national television and radio because “there is a desire to show support for the Muslim community as they return to mosques”.
On a visit yesterday to Cashmere High School, where Hamza was a pupil, Ms Ardern told children: “Look after one another, but also let New Zealand be a place where there is no tolerance for racism.”
Around 30 people seriously injured in the attacks at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre remain in hospital, including a girl of four.
Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, has been charged with murder and is next due to appear in court on April 5.