'Thank you for your prayers': Christchurch shooting victim, 4, utters first words since attack

A donation page set up to support the family following the attacks has so far raised almost $60,000.

A four-year-old girl who was shot in last month's horrific has uttered her first words after suffering brain damage during the shooting.

According to a Facebook post from her father, who also suffered a number of gunshot wounds in the attack, the young girl woke up from a coma in April and was unable to see or recognise her family. 

But in a Facebook post on Tuesday, her family said the little girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was now speaking slowly in English and Arabic.
Flowers at a memorial near the Masjid Al Noor mosque for victims in the Christchurch terror attack.
Flowers at a memorial near the Masjid Al Noor mosque for victims in the Christchurch terror attack. Source: AAP
"Thank you for all your prayers," the post reads, with an accompanying photo of the family in Auckland's Starship children's hospital.

"Now we need to get body control and eyesight back."
The young girl was shot three times while walking towards the Masjid Al-Noor mosque on Deans Avenue with her father, stuff.co.nz has reported.

In a video posted on April 11, her father said it would be a minimum of six months until he knew the extent of his daughter's brain damage.
Mourners lay flowers on a wall at the Botanical Gardens in Christchurch.
Mourners lay flowers on a wall at the Botanical Gardens in Christchurch. Source: AP
The May 15 attacks on two mosques in

A donation page set up to support the family following the attacks has so far raised almost $60,000. 


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Published 24 April 2019 10:34am
By Maani Truu


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