Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes early today linked to the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques last week. The homes were in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged shooter, grew up. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation," a police statement said.

Four hundred people attended a vigil at Tempelhof Field, Berlin, on Sunday evening to show solidarity with Muslim communities in light of the terrorist attack in Christchurch. The event was organised by a group of New Zealanders living in Berlin. While much of the crowd came from New Zealand and Australia, many were from elsewhere, including Germany, Syria, Palestine, The United States of America, The United Kingdom and Turkey.

Meanwhile, Facebook removed 1.5m copies of the video of the New Zealand terrorist attack in the first 24 hours after Friday’s shootings, highlighting the enormous challenge involved in keeping violent and offensive material off social networks. Fifty people died in the attack on two mosques in Christchurch, which was livestreamed for 17 minutes on Facebook by the gunman. Although the original footage was removed after an hour and banned by the most popular social media sites, it has since been repeatedly reuploaded by other users, leaving tech companies struggling to keep it off their servers.