WELLINGTON, New Zealand — They arrived in New Zealand from across the Middle East and Asia, forming a tightly bound community of Muslims reaching back to the mid-19th century who in recent years went there to attend universities, open restaurants or escape wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Mosques were not for Pakistanis or Somalis or Bangladeshis, but for anyone in town, residents and visitors alike, residents said. And so when a gunman stormed two mosques in the city of Christchurch during Friday Prayers, killing 49 people, the terror rippled through New Zealand’s nearly 50,000 Muslims and beyond, reaching into homes throughout the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Families scrambled for visas so that they could race to the bed sides of the injured. And in New Zealand, they just tried to get someone to answer their calls.

Source: New York Times March 15, 2019 13:01 UTC