First four of 50 victims from Christchurch attack are prepared for burial

Three Brisbane men have flown to Christchurch to prepare the bodies of victims according to strict Islamic funeral rites to spare relatives of the dead.

Brisbane men, left to right, Ali Armando, Taufan Mawardi, Kamran Nasir, who travelled to Christchurch to help wash the bodies of massacre victims before they are buried.

The first four of 50 victims from Friday’s terrorist massacre have left the Christchurch Hospital in hearses this morning. More bodies are expected to be released as the day unfolds. Mass graves have already been dug in readiness at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, where the community hopes to hold a mass burial before sunset today.

A huge contingent of Muslim volunteers from across New Zealand and Australia will now begin the extraordinary tasking of washing and shrouding the bodies — many of them badly disfigured by gun wounds.

Brisbane man Ali Armando is just one of the hundreds of Muslim volunteers who will be washing the bodies according to strict Islamic funeral rites, a task he says he wanted to spare the relatives of the dead, especially given so many of the massacre victims were wounded so badly.

“As Australians we felt ... because it happened to our neighbours… if something so horrible and evil can come across the shore and do something like that, then I think surely we can come across and do something like this,” Mr Armando explained as he and his fellow volunteers from Brisbane gathered outside Hagley College in Christchurch, which has become the make-shift crisis headquarters for the Muslim community.

“To be honest I’ve never dealt with a body that has been disfigured so today will possibly be a new experience,’ he said.

“We sort of jumped straight into it, I don’t know if we are really prepared for what we are about to do, but somebody has to do it.”

His friend, Taufan Mawardi, who is also from Brisbane, says preparing the body can take three to four people around 20 minutes.

“You’ve got to make sure when they’re washed you start from head to the toes, you have the mouth and noses rinsed, every part of the body is being run over, there’s a few steps in the process,’ he says.

Once the washing is complete, the face is then shrouded.

“Once we take the body out we place it in a certain position so the face is faced the way we pray and the body is leaning that way a bit,” said Mr Armando.

A large group of women volunteers have also joined the army of body washers, including Sydney woman, Mahshaad Ansari: “We just wanted to be here for our community. This is a new young community and some of them don’t have much family and friends.’

Shama Nhazeen, who flew in from Auckland the day after the tragedy says despite their collective experience preparing bodies for Islamic burial, they know the extensive body wounds will be confronting.

“One of the women who was shown on television asking for help, the gunman has come back and shot her in the head, so some of the bodies that we are working with have parts missing,” she says.