Matthew Rosenberg

13 April 2019

A young girl who was shot in the Christchurch terror attacks has sustained brain damage and doesn't recognise her parents, her father says.

Four-year-old Alen Daraghmih is in Auckland's Starship children's hospital, conscious, but not responding. Across the road, her father Wasseim Alsati remains in Auckland City Hospital where he's spent the past three-and-a-half weeks.

Both father and daughter sustained serious injuries in the massacre at Al Noor mosque on March 15.

"To be honest, it's in the last couple of days I've come to understand the situation. We're very hurt," an emotional Mr Alsati said from his hospital bed on Thursday night.

"She's awake, but she's not responding. She can't see. Her hands and her legs are slightly moving, but not the way she wants them to."

Alen has undergone eight surgeries, but it will be six months before doctors know how bad the damage is, Mr Alsati said.

Meanwhile, Mr Alsati is battling his own medical issues, having undergone several surgeries at Christchurch Hospital before being transferred to Auckland on March 17.

He was shot three times in the attack, and says he has "heaps of fragments of bullets" left in his body, some of which won't be removable until a later date.

 © 2019 BIC