HIS family had fled one of the world’s most dangerous countries. Yet Mucad Ibrahim lost his short life in one of its safest.

The child of Somali refugees was the youngest of what is now know to be 50 people to die in Friday’s white nationalist terror attack on two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch.

Just three, Mucad was lost in the melee when firing started at one of the attacked mosques, Al Noor. His older brother, Abdi, had fled for his life. His father, Adan, had pretended to be dead after being shot.

Confused, Mucad - called Mou’adee by his friends and family - had run towards the shooter. Onlookers later speculated that the boy had thought he was witnessing some kind of game.

Then, he was lost. Before discovering the truth, the Ibrahims had searched in vain for Mucad.

They later posted a photograph of Mucad, smiling with Abdi under the caption: “Verily we belong to God and to Him we shall return. Will miss you dearly brother”.

Abdi was to describe his little brother as “energetic, playful and liked to smile and laugh a lot”, confessing he felt nothing but “hatred” for his killer.

“He could have grown up to be a brilliant doctor or the prime minister,” another Somali worshipper Mohamud Hassan, 21, told The Washington Post. The paper said Mr Hassan had shaken he head and asked “why?”

The Friday Mosque shootings brought another world to New Zealand, of pointless death, of political extremism, of the kind of things families like the Ibrahims had hoped to leave behind in Somalia.

Many of those who lost their lives had sought refuge in New Zealand, or were the children of those who had done so. But mainstream political and social leaders in the country pointedly embraced the victims as their own - while rejecting the man who has been charged with the crime as foreign.

“Many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities. New Zealand is their home,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared soon after the terror atrocities. “They are us.”

On Sunday, amid all the calls for - and assertions of - unity, there was, nevertheless, the first signs of discord.

Members of New Zealand’s Muslim community lashed out at the nation’s police force for taking too long to respond to shooting at the mosques - and were now too slow in identifying victims and handing them over to their families for funerals.

The Press, in Christchurch, quoted an Auckland Muslim called Sheikh Amjad Ali, criticising the slow response. “Seventeen minutes the video was on and nobody arrived at the centre,” he said, referring to a Facebook live stream of the attack.

Police said their officers had to go back to the station to get armed before tackling the shooter.

Mr Ali said: “I don’t buy this reasoning. Some police officers would have arrived on time, that would have deterred the killer.”

He also expressed concern that bodies were left at least 48 hours decomposing inside the mosque as forensic officers tried to piece together the crime.

Protestors in Christchurch echoed his concerns, demanding to know why one Bangladeshi heritage man, Zakaria Bhuiyan, was still listed as missing.

They carried placards saying “how long do we have to wait now” and “please Help us find Zakaria Bhuiyan” in front of international media.

Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Authorities said they were trying to be quick.

New Zealand’s Police Commissioner, Mike Bush, said his officers were working with pathologists and coroners to release the bodies as soon as they could.

“We have to be absolutely clear on the cause of death and confirm their identity before that can happen,” he said. “But we are so aware of the cultural and religious needs. So we are doing that as quickly and as sensitively as possible.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a small number of bodies would start being released to families on Sunday evening, and authorities hoped to release all the bodies by Wednesday.

Police said they had released a preliminary list of the victims to families, which has helped give closure to some relatives who were waiting for any news.

The scale of the tragedy and the task still ahead became clear as imams had to brought in to help with the burial rituals in Christchurch. Authorities sent in diggers to prepare new graves in a Muslim burial area that was newly fenced off and blocked from view with white netting.

The suspect in the shootings, 28-year-old white supremacist Brenton Harrison Tarrant, appeared in court on Saturday amid strict security, and showed no emotion when the judge read him one murder charge and said more would likely follow.

Mr Bush said at a news conference on Sunday that they found another body at Al Noor mosque as they finished removing the victims, bringing the number of people killed there to 42, including Mucad Ibrahim.

Another seven people were killed at Linwood mosque and one more person died later at Christchurch Hospital, where 34 people, including a young child, are still being treated.

New Zealanders this weekend gathered opposite the Ala Noor Mosque, in Christchurch’s Hagley Park, to pay their respects. This was where Mr Ibrahim usually took his sons to play football after Friday prayers.