Kuwaiti charity launches initiative for New Zealand victims’ families

To help ease out the anguish of ‘martyrs’ families: IICO Chief

KUWAIT: The International Islamic Charity Organization (IICO) has launched a humanitarian initiative to alleviate the woes of families of the victims of recent mosque shootings in New Zealand. “Out of our human and ethical responsibility, we have launched this initiative in order to help in easing out the anguish of the affected families whose sons got ‘martyred’ or injured in this horrible terrorist incident,” IICO Chairman Dr Abdullah Al-Maatouq said in a press statement.

The Kuwait-headquartered charity’s humanitarian initiative includes relief programs involving medicine and basic needs in general, said Maatouq, who is an advisor at Amiri Diwan. At least 50 Muslim worshippers were killed and over 48 others wounded in attacks on two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand on Friday. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, on Saturday appeared before a court in Christchurch where he was charged with murder. The attacks on the two mosques have sparked wide-scale condemnations and denunciations from world leaders, mainly Arab and Muslim ones.

Maatouq condemned the incident as a terrorist attack on peaceful worshippers and a heinous aggression on human values. He stressed that terrorism has no homeland, color, religion or ethical and geographical boundaries, calling on the international community with all its organizations to resolutely fight terrorism. “What has happened is an appalling terrorist crime that breaks all moral and human values and that was perpetrated by people who have lost their human sentiments and favored the policy of hatred and extremism,” he lamented. He urged the world to exert concerted efforts to fend off the discourse of racism and intolerance and to uproot terrorism and fight all platforms that instigate hatred, violence and extremism. Instead, the values of people-to-people peaceful coexistence should be observed, the IICO chief emphasized. Maatouq concluded by underscoring that such criminal and brutal acts against innocent Muslims target world destabilize security and stability and trigger off tensions. – KUNA

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