As Kenya comes to grips with the worst attack on its soil since the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, survivors revealed grim details of early-April’s Islamic extremist assault.
Separating out Christian students from Muslims, members of Somalia’s Muslim extremist group al-Shabab killed 148 people April 2 and wounded 104 at Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya, sources said. The gunmen first targeted a chapel service where Christians had gathered for prayer at 5 a.m., area church leaders said.
The assailants sprayed them with bullets, killing 22 students. Millicent Murugi, a female student and member of the East Africa Pentecostal Church (EAPC), lay in a pool of blood among the bodies, feigning death.
“One terrorist picked up a call from a phone on a dead body close by and he said that they were continuing to kill their children and that they need to know that Garissa is for Muslims only,” Murugi said.
Among those killed at the chapel were five members of EAPC, six Roman Catholics, five Anglicans and four members of the Africa Inland Church, church leaders said. The church affiliation of two others has not been established, they said.
Another Christian survivor, Esther Kawira of EAPC, verified statements that the assailants targeted Christians.
“Bullets missed me narrowly as I fled for my life while the terrorists were separating Muslims from non-Muslims before gunning down the Christians,” she said.
Family and friends who lost loved ones wept as they gathered in Chiromo Mortuary in Nairobi to identify and receive bodies. On April 7 hundreds of mourners gathered at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, placing 147 crosses into the ground. A later tally said 148 had been killed besides four assailants; the onslaught reportedly took the lives of 142 students, three security officers and three university security personnel.
#147notjustanumber
Kenyans created the hashtag #147notjustanumber to share photos and comments about the victims on Twitter.
According to CNN, vigil organizer Boniface Mwangi said, “We need to talk about the bright futures cut short.
“Today’s meeting will be a calling to say, ‘We need to remember the 147; they are not just a number.’ We are trying to avoid remembering these people as just a number.”
On April 4 several students were rescued inside a university building as they hid above a ceiling, a church leader reported.
Open Doors, a group that raises awareness about the persecuted church, had staff in Garissa at the time of the attack. One staff member reported, “The situation is very tense and we are seeing some heartbreaking things.”
Other staff members visited some of the injured who have been transferred to hospitals in Nairobi, Open Doors reported. They prayed and encouraged the wounded students and visited a funeral home where they witnessed scenes of family and friends attempting to identify their children. The identification process has been challenging and traumatic, Open Doors reported, because of the severity of the wounds the victims sustained and the poor preservation of the bodies because of the heat.
Representatives of al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaida, said the attacks came in retaliation for Kenya’s involvement in helping the Somali government fight the al-Shabab insurgency. The rebels also oppose education for women.
Attacks in the past
Al-Shabab militiamen or their sympathizers have carried out several attacks on Kenyan soil in the past two years. For instance the group took responsibility for killing four Christians on March 17 in Wajir and for another attack March 15 in Mandera, in northeastern Kenya.
The Garissa attack caused greater loss of life than al-Shabab’s assault on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall on Sept. 21, 2013, which killed at least 67 people, with dozens still unaccounted for. The assailants killed those they could identify as non-Muslims.
The Muslim population of Kenya is about 8 percent, according to Operation World.
In 2011, Kenya joined African Union forces battling the al-Shabab insurgents after a series of Somali attacks on tourists and other targets in northern Kenya. Since then al-Shabab has carried out several retaliatory attacks on Kenyan soil.
Airstrikes on April 6 against al-Shabab training camps in Somalia were reportedly part of ongoing operations and not in retribution for the attack in Garissa.
Kenya’s Interior Ministry has identified Mohamed Mohamud, a senior al-Shabab leader, as the organizer of the Garissa attack and has offered a reward of $215,000 for information leading to his capture. Mohamud reportedly heads up external operations against Kenya and commands a border militia.
Also involved in the attacks, authorities said, is Abdirahim Abdullahi, a Kenyan-Somali and the son of a government chief in Mandera in northern Kenya.
(MS, Open Doors)
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