Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­pressed shock at the ter­ror­ist at­tack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which yes­ter­day claimed the lives of 49 peo­ple.

The vic­tims were shot to death dur­ing mid­day prayers by an im­mi­grant-hat­ing white su­prema­cist iden­ti­fied as Bren­ton Tar­rant, who used a hel­met-mount­ed cam­era to broad­cast live video of the at­tack on Face­book. Two oth­ers be­lieved to have been in­volved were al­so ar­rest­ed but po­lice have not yet de­ter­mined what their roles were.

In a re­lease is­sued through the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley said: “It is with shock and hor­ror that we the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceived the sad news of the un­speak­able tragedy that has been un­leashed on the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and the en­tire na­tion of our sis­ter Com­mon­wealth na­tion, New Zealand.

“In this pe­ri­od of grief the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we who live by the doc­trine that every creed and race have an equal place in our na­tion, un­re­served­ly con­demn all words and deeds from what­so­ev­er source, that would have the ef­fect of ini­ti­at­ing, en­cour­ag­ing or sus­tain­ing ha­tred in any and all its man­i­fes­ta­tions.”

Shar­ing the out­rage of oth­er world lead­ers to the dead­liest at­tack ever in New Zealand’s his­to­ry, Row­ley added: “We call for the widest pos­si­ble con­dem­na­tion of this de­bas­ing of hu­man­i­ty by those who fail to ac­cept the one­ness of the hu­man race. We trust that the peo­ple of New Zealand, who to­day bear this bur­den for all of us, will find the strength to over­come this tragedy as they stand firm on their prin­ci­ples of nur­tur­ing a peace­ful and hu­man­i­tar­i­an na­tion.”

In a tweet on the at­tack, mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I join all cit­i­zens of T&T in con­demn­ing the heinous ter­ror­ist at­tack in New Zealand to­day. T&T stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of New Zealand and the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty as we mourn this trag­ic loss.”

US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo al­so joined the long list of diplo­mats who con­demned the at­tack as he met with re­li­gious lead­ers of sev­er­al faiths—Mus­lim, Hin­du, Ro­man Catholic, Bahá’í, Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist and Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist—at the Masjid Al Taw­bah in To­ba­go.

Said Mon­del­lo: “It’s prophet­ic on a day like to­day when tragedy took place in New Zealand that we have this meet­ing, I hon­est­ly be­lieve. Hope­ful­ly, this is the way of the fu­ture when re­li­gions band to­geth­er, bring peo­ple to­geth­er, so tragedies like we ex­pe­ri­enced will not hap­pen.

“It’s a hor­ri­ble thing to live in a time when peo­ple can­not go to a mosque, church or tem­ple and ex­press their feel­ings re­li­gious­ly with­out fear of be­ing mur­dered, which is ex­act­ly what hap­pened to­day. All I can say is more pow­er to you, God bless you for what you are do­ing.”

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) al­so con­demned “in the strongest pos­si­ble terms this sav­age act of ter­ror­ism per­pe­trat­ed at places of wor­ship, where peo­ple would nor­mal­ly find sanc­tu­ary and peace.”

In a state­ment on the mat­ter, Cari­com said: “No ide­ol­o­gy or phi­los­o­phy could jus­ti­fy such grue­some acts. Our Com­mu­ni­ty stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty to­day with the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of New Zealand, a coun­try renowned for its di­ver­si­ty and tran­quil­li­ty. We are con­fi­dent that this hor­ren­dous in­ci­dent will strength­en the tra­di­tion­al val­ues of peace and har­mo­ny for which New Zealand is well-known.

“The brav­ery of those who went to the as­sis­tance of the wound­ed even as the at­tack un­fold­ed must be ap­plaud­ed, as well as the swift re­sponse by the se­cu­ri­ty forces.”

The re­gion­al body al­so ex­tend­ed sym­pa­thies to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of New Zealand and con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies and loved ones of those who lost their lives.

“We al­so wish a full and speedy re­cov­ery to those in­jured.”