So many of their sons loved football. The game meant inclusion and friendship regardless of language or culture; it cemented bonds in their own community and promised a way to forge new ones outside of it. As Noraini Abbas readies team shirts and prepares lunches for an indoor football festival on Wednesday, she recalls years of ferrying her soccer-mad sons to games in Christchurch, New Zealand, on weekend mornings which always seemed freezing, no matter the time of year.
But Wednesday’s schedule of friendly matches is different from games before. Abbas is hosting the second annual event in memory of her youngest son, Sayyad Abbas Milne, and 50 other Muslim worshipers who were killed when a white supremacist opened fire at their mosques during Friday prayers, four years ago.
