Monday, 23 September 2013

Still On Kenya Mall Attack, As Kenyan Troops Battle To Save Mall Hostages

 
Heavy gunfire and loud explosions erupted at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall. Monday as Kenyan troops fought Al Qaeda-linked gunmen who were holding hostages after massacring at least 69 people.

The Red Cross said at least 63 people were recorded missing, thought to include hostages as well as those possibly killed or still hiding in the 48-hour-long siege.

The total stigma of the attack with no movement is broke out at dawn with two days gone by within till now.

“We have managed to rescue more hostages overnight and very few are remaining,” Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo said Monday, in the latest of a string of upbeat statements. “We are also closing in on the attackers.”

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta as vowed that the attackers will not go unpunished if apprehended.

Lives have been lose in the process of this attack, and families have gone with the dust.

The dead include three Britons, two French women, two Canadians including a diplomat, a Chinese woman, two Indians, a South Korean, a South African and a Dutch woman, according to their governments. Also killed was Ghanaian poet and former UN envoy Kofi Awoonor, 78, while his son was injured.

Rumours swirled that non-Somalis and women were among the fighters but the Shebab have denied such press reports.

‘People sprayed with bullets’ Mall worker Zipporah Wanjiru, who emerged from the ordeal alive but in a state of shock, said she hid under a table with five other colleagues.
“They were shooting indiscriminately, it was like a movie seeing people sprayed with bullets like that,” she said, bursting into tears. Security camera footage seen by Kenya’s The Standard newspaper showed gunmen raking toilet cubicles with a barrage of gunfire, apparently after
learning that several people were hiding inside.

Fighters later holed up in a cinema on the top floor and a security room of a supermarket, the paper added.


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