Donations for shooting victims' families set to top $10 million

Zaed Mustafa, who was injured in the attacks, reacts during the burial of his father Khalid and...
Zaed Mustafa, who was injured in the attacks, reacts during the burial of his father Khalid and brother Hamza, both killed in the shootings, at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch on Wednesday. Photo: AP
Nearly $10 million has been raised for the families who lost their loved ones in the Christchurch terrorist attack and for those victims who survived the traumatic shootings.

The official Victim Support Givealittle page has now gathered more than $7.2m from over 85,000 generous donors, as of 7am this morning.

That's on top of the $2.3m raised on the Launch Good page from more than 38,000 supporters.

The page is being managed by the New Zealand Islamic Information Centre, which will distribute the funds to the families.

"No amount of money will bring back their loved ones, but we do hope to lessen their burden in some way," they wrote on the page.

More than 45 other Givealittle pages have also been set up to support victims and families of Friday's attack in which a gunman killed 50 people in two Christchurch mosques and injured dozens more.

Individual pages for those killed have been created - some to help families take their loved ones back to their native land and others to support the grieving family members they left behind.

A Givealittle page for the husband of Ansi Alibava to take her home to India has raised more than...
A Givealittle page for the husband of Ansi Alibava to take her home to India has raised more than $37,000. Photo: Supplied
One page has raised more than $37,000 to help the husband of 25-year-old Ansi Alibava take his wife back to India to join their extended family.

"She will be sorely missed by her mother and brother eagerly waiting for her return," a member of the Kerala Cultural Forum who created the page wrote.

They said part of the money raised would go towards paying back her student loan and other debts.

"She will be leaving behind a huge financial liability for her husband Abdul Nazer to pay off. Every donation big or small will be appreciated," they wrote.

Another page aims to help the wife and 2-year-old daughter of New Zealand Futsal goalkeeper Atta Elayyan, who was killed in the attack.

Over $139,000 has been raised for Elayyan's family, as of 7am today.

Dr Anwar Sahib, chairman of the NZ Islamic Information Centre, told the Herald on Tuesday he had been blown away by the generosity of Kiwis.

His team were keen to enlist the help of other organisations in managing and distributing the money because they did not have experience with such a large fundraising campaign.

He expected to have a plan for distributing the money by at least April 1.

Meanwhile, the Givealittle team are on alert for scam pages or anyone trying to profit illegally from the tragedy.

Spark Foundation, which runs Givealittle, also announced that a fee of at least $250,000 - which would have been charged to Victim Support's fundraising page - would now be waived after the foundation, Westpac NZ and Payment Express agreed to pick up the cost.

Givealittle also said it had been forced to urgently upgrade its website infrastructure to handle "the unprecedented levels of traffic and donations" that had poured in for victims.

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