PETALING JAYA: It was a heart-wrenching few minutes for Marina Hamzah as she stood inside a mortuary in New Zealand today, her eyes on five bodies laid out on the table.
She had been asked to see if any one of those was her 17-year-old son Muhd Haziq Mohd Tarmizi.
However, he was not among them. But for Marina it was already an ordeal watching her husband Mohd Tarmizi Shuib, 46, and youngest son Muhd Haris, 13, who are still recovering from the trauma of an attack last Friday.
The wait for her missing son only made it worse.
Muhd Haziq, his father and little brother were at the Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch for Friday prayers when a gunman opened fire at the congregation. About 50 people were killed in the attack and another 50 injured.
Five days after the attack, Marina was still looking for her missing son. She had pleaded to all Malaysians to pray for him.
Penang state executive councillor Phee Boon Poh, who was in Christchurch with Bayan Lepas state assemblyman Azrul Mahathir Aziz to offer support, said it was routine to ask family members to identify bodies.
Tarmizi, who sustained several gunshot wounds, said he saw his two sons escape towards the compound of the mosque. That was the last he saw of Muhd Haziq.
A traumatised Muhd Haris was found and brought to the children’s ward at a hospital for treatment.
In a series of tweets, the New Zealand police said post-mortem had been completed for 50 victims but only 12 of them have been positively identified. Six of them have been handed over to their next-of-kin.
The Tarmizi family, who were originally from Kedah, have been living in Christchurch for several months. He works as an aircraft engineer there.
Azrul said Tarmizi is showing signs of improvement despite being shot several times.
The other Malaysians wounded in the attack are Rahimi Ahmad, 39, from Penang and Mohd Nazril Hisham Omar, 46, from Kelantan. They are expected to undergo another round of surgery to remove bullet fragments. Nazril continues to show symptoms of trauma.
