On a Friday in March, a quiet city became a crime scene. In less than twenty minutes, fifty-one people who had gone to pray were dead. Lives, families, routines — all cleaved in half. A livestreamed attack, a manifesto sent in advance, weapons modified and named like trophies. The killer had called himself a “regular white man.”

This is the tragic account of the Christchurch Mosque Shootings.

Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island, had long been known for its wide avenues, English-style gardens, and rivers threading through urban suburbs. In 2011, the city had been reshaped by a devastating earthquake, leaving scars that were still visible in patches of rebuilt infrastructure and partially vacant lots. 

The Al Noor Mosque sat in the suburb of Riccarton, a residential area interspersed with schools, small businesses, and community spaces. Its low-slung brick façade and modest minaret presented nothing threatening; the mosque blended into the surrounding streets, quiet and unassuming, bordered by leafy roads and modest homes.

The Linwood Islamic Centre, located several kilometres east of Riccarton, occupied a similar suburban setting. The building was unpretentious, a simple hall with windows opening onto a modest lawn and parking area. Both sites were integrated into ordinary city streets, surrounded by daily life: parked cars, pedestrians, children walking home from school, and neighbours going about their routines. It was precisely this ordinariness that made them vulnerable — a reminder that terror often intrudes on the mundane and unsuspecting.