Sombre vigil marks lives snuffed out

School students hold torches representing 115 people killed by their families in the past decade. Picture / Greg Bowker

They were babies, children, young women, mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers.

They were killed by their mothers, fathers, brothers, boyfriends, stepsons, cousins and even, in one case, the generic "relatives" where the offender had not been identified.

They had been stabbed, shot, strangled, poisoned, bashed, drowned and suffocated. Neglect was the killer of a 1-year-old boy.

One at a time, fiery torches held high by Maori students were snuffed out, just like the 115 lives they represented - all of them killed through family violence in the past decade.

In each case the spare, but brutal, details of the deaths were illuminated on a large screen set up on the flanks of Mangere Mountain.

A torch was extinguished as each murder flashed by in front of a silent, mainly Maori audience of about 300, including police, politicians and judges.

The first, in 1995, was that of a 1-year-old Maori baby who died after being assaulted by her father.

The victims that followed included Europeans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, but were also predominantly Maori.

The vigil to celebrate the new dawn of Matariki, the Maori New Year, had been organised before the deaths of twins Chris and Cru Kahui.

But the ceremony intended to light the night with hope was used to highlight the devastation caused by family violence. By the end of the chilling slide show a sense of despair hung over the crowd, the most emotional outbursts in protest at the violence gaining the biggest applause.

A short but furious bonfire was lit as dawn broke.

As the fire died down the sky started to warm in colour, although the numbing cold was at its worst and the shivering students of Kura Maori o Nga Tapuwae could no longer warm their hands by the flames.

The mother of two stoic teenagers remarked with pride how they had got out of bed at 3am - "no complaints" - to take part. These are the ones you doubt ever grew up with the bash.