'Ko tātou, tātou - We are one' - national remembrance service for Christchurch mosque attacks
[RNZ report from Friday 29 March]
Large crowds are gathered in Christchurch for the national remembrance service for the 50 people killed in the mosque
attacks.
Watch the service here:
The service is being held at Hagley Park in Christchurch and features perfomances by Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens, Marlon
Williams, Maisey Rika, Hollie Smith and Teeks.
• Scroll down for live updates
Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel addressed the crowd.
"Thank you for sharing our grief and thank you for helping restore our faith in humanity," she said.
Muslim Association of Canterbury president Shagaf Khan also addressed the crowd.
"I feel proud of the way our country has responded. I feel ultimately hopeful that as a community, as a people, as a
nation, we are clear about the path we want to walk."
One of the survivors of the Al Noor Mosque attack, Farid Ahmed, told the crowd he had forgiven the shooter who killed
his wife.
"I want a heart that will be full of love and care and full of mercy and will forgive lavishly. This heart doesn't want
any more lives to be lost.
"This heart doesn't like that the pain I have gone through ... that any human being should go through that kind of pain.
That is why I have chosen peace, I have chosen love and I have forgiven."
Read more
The attacks on Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Mosque during Friday prayers left 50 people dead on what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as one of New Zealand's darkest days.
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