40 killed in our worst terrorist attack

The death toll in the terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques has been confirmed at 40, with a further 20 injured.

There are so many victims, it is hard to know where to begin.

• 40 New Zealanders are dead, when they were peacefully at prayer. They were slaughtered because of their religion.
• At least 40 families have a lost fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children etc. The family members will never fully recover. Their lives will never be the same again.
• Every Muslim in New Zealand will be reflecting that this could have been them. This was a slaughter of innocents based on their religion. The main gunman said he considered Dunedin also, and Ashburton if he could make it. He didn’t care where so long as it was a mosque. New Zealand as sadly joined other countries where armed Police now have to protect places of worship
• People in Christchurch are mourning. Their city has been through enough. No place deserved this, but it seems especially unfair Christchurch gets to suffer again. Few people in Christchurch won’t know someone directly affected.
• And of course everyone in NZ is affected also. One of the worst terrorist attacks in the world has happened in New Zealand. It will change us and affect us.

For now we are mourning. There will come a time when the focus will be on how did this happen, and how do we stop it happening again. How did they get guns? Could they have been detected early? How were they radicalised?

But now now we mourn and hopefully reject extremism. Any ideology that doesn’t value human life and justifies the deliberate killing of innocents is simply evil.

UPDATE: 49 now dead