Holy Quran bookshelf saved him

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand: As the bullets tore into worshippers during Friday prayers, taxi driver Abdul Kadir Ababora threw himself to the floor and wedged himself under a bookshelf used to hold Holy Qurans, praying he would see his wife and kids again.

Somehow that decision saved his life and he emerged from the carnage unscathed. "It's just a miracle," he told AFP on Sunday as he revisited the scene. "When I woke up to the left and right of me it was just dead bodies." Like so many who attended weekly prayers at Christchurch's Al Noor mosque, Ababora had come to New Zealand from a troubled overseas homeland hoping to find peace and prosperity. The 48-year-old said he arrived from Ethiopia in 2010 and made a life for himself in the placid city of Canterbury.