<![CDATA[New Zealand shootings: 'How do you tell a child some people don't like you because you're Muslim?']>
Media adviser Sumeera Dawood, 39, her husband and their two sons regularly worship at the Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue in Christchurch, New Zealand. On Friday afternoon, their world was turned upside down when at least one gunman entered the mosque and opened fire on worshippers, killing 41 people on the spot. Minutes later, an attack on a mosque on Linwood Avenue, a few kilometres away, brought the death toll to 49. At least 48 others are injured and being treated in hospital.
Dawood and her family were not in the mosque at the time of the shooting but immediately went on social media to make sure everyone they knew was safe.
"There's just one person that we haven't been able to locate and that's a colleague of my husband who was at the mosque at the time," she told the South China Morning Post on Friday evening. "He's quite stressed because I haven't been able to find him."
Dawood, who moved from Cape Town in South Africa to New Zealand in 2016, said the attacks were "completely out of the blue".
"I don't believe there is massive hate towards Muslims in New Zealand. I do feel there is a lot of love in New Zealand for people of other cultures and religions. There's probably just a really small portion of people with that level of hatred," she said.
New Zealand police said a man had been charged with murder but did not confirm if he was the 28-year-old Australian who claimed responsibility for the attacks and uploaded a racist manifesto before going to the mosques.
Data from New Zealand's 2013 census, the latest available, found Muslims formed about 1 per cent of the 4.2 million population then. Muslims came from diverse origins - about 26.9 per cent were born in Asia, 23.3 per cent in the Middle East and under half were born in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
John Shaver, a lecturer of religion at the University of Otago, authored a paper in 2016 with three other academics, which found interactions between Muslims and other ethnic groups were generally peaceful, and while there were mild forms of harassment, violent conflict was minimal.
Shaver told the Post the attacks were especially shocking because New Zealand was widely seen as relatively welcoming of Muslims compared to other Western countries.
"Generally it's a very tolerant society, so it comes as a shock and I suspect that one of the motivations of the terrorist was to shock an area that didn't expect anything like this to happen," he said.
Shaver said there had previously been widespread community support for the government to increase its intake of refugees escaping years of conflict in Syria.
"I used to live in Wellington, which is on the North Island, and I remember a Christian church that had a sign outside that said, 'Up the quota', which was signifying that we should let more refugees into the country," he said.
Worshippers pray for victims of the Christchurch shootings during a vigil in Australia. Photo: AP
Dawood said New Zealand's reputation for being safe had been a bonus when her family made the move. Her sons are now nine and five, she said, and she used to feel "an immense sense of safety" living in Christchurch.
"I've been allowed to practise my faith quite normally and it's not an issue. This attack has come as quite a surprise and was completely unexpected. The level of organisation associated with it is quite scary and lends itself to a sense that there's a growing sentiment in New Zealand."
As New Zealand police told Muslims to stay away from mosques, the president of the country's Federation of Islamic Associations urged people to stay calm.
"We can only hope this is an isolated incident and that New Zealand will return to being the peaceful country it has long been for all who live here, whatever their religion," said Dr Mustafa Farouk, in a statement on Facebook.
Attacks on two Christchurch mosques left at least 49 dead. Photo: AFP
Schools were put on lockdown until the late afternoon in Christchurch and while waiting to collect her children, Dawood said she thought about how to explain to her older son what had happened.
"How do you explain to a child that there are people out there who don't like what you stand for? I had to keep reminding myself to explain to him that this was an isolated event and in a way I was reassuring myself," she said.
She said she now fears sending her older son to attend religious classes at the mosque on Saturday.
"I'm not comfortable with him going. I don't feel we are safe quite yet," she said.
"The biggest problem is that people think Islamic terrorists represent Islam. They think that IS [Islamic State] represents Islam. There's not a single Muslim I know who thinks that people who belong to IS are even Muslim.
"I think the underlying issue is Islam is so misrepresented in the minds of other people that they don't actually understand enough, they don't actually care to understand enough."
Additional reporting by John Power
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
