Iraq News Now

The death toll in the attack on two mosques in the New

Zealand city of Christchurch rose to 50 after investigators found another

victim as they removed bodies from the crime scenes, the country's police

commissioner said on Sunday.

The bodies of the victims in the attack by a suspected white

supremacist in Friday's attacks had not yet been released to families because

investigations were ongoing, but police were working as quickly as they could

to do that, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said at a media conference in

Wellington.

Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, a suspected white

supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday.

Tarrant, handcuffed and wearing a white prison suit, stood

silently in the Christchurch District Court where he was remanded without a

plea. He is due back in court on April 5 and police said he was likely to face

further charges.

Friday's attack, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

labelled as terrorism, was the worst ever peacetime mass killing in New Zealand

and the country had raised its security threat level to the highest.

"It is with sadness that I advise that number of people

who died in this event has now risen to 50," Bush said.

"As of last night we were able to take all of the

victims from both of those scenes. In doing so we were able to locate a further

victim."

The body of the 50th victim was found at the Al Noor mosque,

where more than 40 people died on Friday after a gunman entered and shot

randomly at people with a semi-automatic rifle with high-capacity magazines,

before travelling to a second mosque.

Bush said there were also 50 people injured. Thirty-six were

being treated in Christchurch Hospital, with two remaining in intensive care,

and one child was at a dedicated children's hospital.

Bush said police did not believe that three other people

arrested on Friday were involved in the attack. Two men faced charges unrelated

or "tangential" to the attack, while a woman had been released, he

said.