Hero refugee chased gunman away from Christchurch mosque

As New Zealanders struggle to cope with the deadly mayhem that happened in Christchurch, stories of heroism have emerged from the tragedy. One story is that of a worshiper originally from Afghanistan, who chased away the gunman armed only with a credit card machine.

By the time he attacked the Linwood mosque, the gunman had already killed dozens at the Al Noor mosque nearby, and on the streets.

Hailed as a hero, Abdul Aziz, 48, says they all thought there was a fire cracker or something, then someone screaming and saying some of the brothers and sisters are getting shot. "I heard more gun shots and I thought that is not fire crackers or anything, so I just ran outside."

Aziz ran towards to the Australian man Brenton Tarrant, picking up a credit card machine as a makeshift weapon.

Aziz said he threw the credit card machine, ducking between the cars as Tarrant opened fire.

He says as he was running, "I was telling the guy, 'come I'm here, you know, come'. Then he was keeping shooting at me and when I was coming that side I wanted to go to the car park and I just want him not to go inside the mosque."

Aziz said Tarrant went inside the mosque, and he followed.

When Tarrant saw Aziz holding a shotgun which he picked up after the gunman dropped earlier, the gunman dropped his gun and ran to his car. And Aziz continued to chase him.

Tarrant was planning even more attacks when he was captured shortly thereafter by two policemen.

According to a BBC report, video footage of the first mosque attack, filmed by the gunman himself, shows another hero, Mian Naeem Rashid, confronting the killer outside the building. This was right before Rashid was killed, along with his son. Rashid is from Pakistan. His government has given him a national award for courage.

Without that kind of courage, the death toll in Christchurch could have been much worse.

(With input from Reuters; Jin Yingqiao and Shang Jianglong also contributed)