Kenyan troops delayed rescue nearly 15 hours, Garissa U survivors say
Global Information Network | April 7, 2015 | Reply
(GIN)—Frightened students at Garissa University in northeast Kenya, hid for what seemed like a lifetime as a small band of al Shabaab terrorists lined young people up on the floor and put a bullet in the back of their heads, one by one by one.
Some were told to recite a prayer from the Koran and failure brought instant death. Others were told to call parents with their cell phones who then heard their child being shot.
The killing spree, which began at dawn in the rural university, left nearly 200 dead, both men and women, but Christian men were the favored target of the gunmen.
Stanely Muli, hiding in a wardrobe, said he wondered why the army stationed nearby was taking so long to arrive.
“I was just praying (to) God that the (Kenya Defense Forces) would come,” he told Robyn Dixon, a reporter with the Los Angeles Times.
He said he could hear the Shabaab fighters searching rooms and killing students.
Muli was shot in the thigh but survived the bloodletting. The government failed to protect us, he said, still in shock.
“We are angry because we lost some of our best friends. We think, ‘How come security wasn’t there when we were at the university?” he told a reporter.
When Kenya’s army finally arrived, they surrounded the school but remained outside the school gates. They didn’t engage Shabaab or end the killings. Government planes, when they finally arrived, carried the interior minister and police chief for a now embarrassing photo op. Journalists who drove the 225 miles to Garissa from Nairobi arrived before the special forces who came by air.
Eleven hours after the attack was launched, a crack police squad reached the school and ended the siege 30 minutes later.
“This is negligence on a scale that borders on the criminal,” The Nation, a local newspaper blustered in its editorial on Sunday. Survivors, they said, reported how gunmen, killing with obvious relish, took their time.
Another headline read: “Response beggars belief.”
Among the dead were three police officers and three soldiers. The four gunmen were also killed, for a total of 148 lives.
Garissa’s location, about 90 miles from Somalia, is a clear shot from al Shabaab bases across the border. The obvious security issues troubled many students, and many refused to attend, hoping for a place in Moi University in Eldoret, west Kenya, but finally accepted admission there.
“It’s like we were being experimented on,” Gideon Nyabwengi, 19, told the LA Times reporter. “When this university was being put in that place, I don’t think it was the right place.”
As news of the disaster filtered out, social media fired up. Two Twitter feeds—#GarissaAttack and #147notjustanumber—were started with latest news, names and pictures of the victims. A vigil in Kenya’s Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park was scheduled for April 7.
So far 78 bodies have been identified out of the 147 that had been airlifted to Nairobi.
Kenya continues to seek answers after slaughter at Garissa University
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya launched more airstrikes Monday on Islamic militant camps in neighboring Somalia – retribution for the brutal attack last week at a college in which Christians were sought out and executed. The attack left 148 people dead.
For four days, Mary Nandwa has been looking for her cousin Milton Mukhwana at the morgue.
Mukhwana was studying at Garissa University when al-Shabaab gunmen launched a murderous rampage. Nandwa is the closest thing Mukhwana has to a mother after his own died last year.
“It is true we are worried about the boy,” said Nandwa, crying. “Still have hope because at the mortuary there is no body so I think they can do something for us.”
Like so many families whose children were slaughtered at Garissa, Nandwa wants answers about the security lapses that allowed the militants to roam the campus for more than 13 hours.
The militants struck at dawn. Kenya’s elite anti-terrorist squad were notified a half hour after the killing spree began. But it took them 10 more hours to reach Garissa — what should have been an hour’s trip by helicopter.
Former Kenyan Defense Force captain Simiyu Werunga has no explanation.
“We cannot understand, even from a layman’s language, why should it take you 10 hours to rescue the students,” said Werunga. “It was a terrible lapse of judgment.”
By nightfall, one of the killers had been arrested. Four more lay dead.
Among them was Abdirahim Abdullahi, a former law school student and son of a local chief. His body was dumped in the back of a van with the rest of the militants and paraded through the streets of Garissa.
But news of the killers’ capture brought no comfort to Mary Nandwa.
The morgue had identified the body of another Garissa student.
It was Milton Mukhwana, a young man with dreams of becoming a teacher, and Nandwa’s missing cousin.
A spokesman for Kenya’s Interior Ministry conceded that if they’d got there sooner, they could have saved more lives. But it was complicated. The bomb disposal unit went by road – that’s six hours – and the local military is not trained to deal with terror attacks.
Kenya Stockholm Blog 
Kenyan troops delayed rescue nearly 15 hours, Garissa U survivors say
Global Information Network | April 7, 2015 | Reply
(GIN)—Frightened students at Garissa University in northeast Kenya, hid for what seemed like a lifetime as a small band of al Shabaab terrorists lined young people up on the floor and put a bullet in the back of their heads, one by one by one.
Some were told to recite a prayer from the Koran and failure brought instant death. Others were told to call parents with their cell phones who then heard their child being shot.
The killing spree, which began at dawn in the rural university, left nearly 200 dead, both men and women, but Christian men were the favored target of the gunmen.
Stanely Muli, hiding in a wardrobe, said he wondered why the army stationed nearby was taking so long to arrive.
“I was just praying (to) God that the (Kenya Defense Forces) would come,” he told Robyn Dixon, a reporter with the Los Angeles Times.
He said he could hear the Shabaab fighters searching rooms and killing students.
Muli was shot in the thigh but survived the bloodletting. The government failed to protect us, he said, still in shock.
“We are angry because we lost some of our best friends. We think, ‘How come security wasn’t there when we were at the university?” he told a reporter.
When Kenya’s army finally arrived, they surrounded the school but remained outside the school gates. They didn’t engage Shabaab or end the killings. Government planes, when they finally arrived, carried the interior minister and police chief for a now embarrassing photo op. Journalists who drove the 225 miles to Garissa from Nairobi arrived before the special forces who came by air.
Eleven hours after the attack was launched, a crack police squad reached the school and ended the siege 30 minutes later.
“This is negligence on a scale that borders on the criminal,” The Nation, a local newspaper blustered in its editorial on Sunday. Survivors, they said, reported how gunmen, killing with obvious relish, took their time.
Another headline read: “Response beggars belief.”
Among the dead were three police officers and three soldiers. The four gunmen were also killed, for a total of 148 lives.
Garissa’s location, about 90 miles from Somalia, is a clear shot from al Shabaab bases across the border. The obvious security issues troubled many students, and many refused to attend, hoping for a place in Moi University in Eldoret, west Kenya, but finally accepted admission there.
“It’s like we were being experimented on,” Gideon Nyabwengi, 19, told the LA Times reporter. “When this university was being put in that place, I don’t think it was the right place.”
As news of the disaster filtered out, social media fired up. Two Twitter feeds—#GarissaAttack and #147notjustanumber—were started with latest news, names and pictures of the victims. A vigil in Kenya’s Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park was scheduled for April 7.
So far 78 bodies have been identified out of the 147 that had been airlifted to Nairobi.
http://www.frostillustrated.com/2015/kenyan-troops-delayed-rescue-nearly-15-hours-garissa-u-survivors-say/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/world/africa/video-captures-kenya-attack/2015/04/03/8e626068-48d2-4e83-b636-2fa8a281a070_video.html
By/Debora Patta/CBS News/April 6, 2015, 7:09 PM
Kenya continues to seek answers after slaughter at Garissa University
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya launched more airstrikes Monday on Islamic militant camps in neighboring Somalia – retribution for the brutal attack last week at a college in which Christians were sought out and executed. The attack left 148 people dead.
For four days, Mary Nandwa has been looking for her cousin Milton Mukhwana at the morgue.
Mukhwana was studying at Garissa University when al-Shabaab gunmen launched a murderous rampage. Nandwa is the closest thing Mukhwana has to a mother after his own died last year.
“It is true we are worried about the boy,” said Nandwa, crying. “Still have hope because at the mortuary there is no body so I think they can do something for us.”
Like so many families whose children were slaughtered at Garissa, Nandwa wants answers about the security lapses that allowed the militants to roam the campus for more than 13 hours.
The militants struck at dawn. Kenya’s elite anti-terrorist squad were notified a half hour after the killing spree began. But it took them 10 more hours to reach Garissa — what should have been an hour’s trip by helicopter.
Former Kenyan Defense Force captain Simiyu Werunga has no explanation.
“We cannot understand, even from a layman’s language, why should it take you 10 hours to rescue the students,” said Werunga. “It was a terrible lapse of judgment.”
By nightfall, one of the killers had been arrested. Four more lay dead.
Among them was Abdirahim Abdullahi, a former law school student and son of a local chief. His body was dumped in the back of a van with the rest of the militants and paraded through the streets of Garissa.
But news of the killers’ capture brought no comfort to Mary Nandwa.
The morgue had identified the body of another Garissa student.
It was Milton Mukhwana, a young man with dreams of becoming a teacher, and Nandwa’s missing cousin.
A spokesman for Kenya’s Interior Ministry conceded that if they’d got there sooner, they could have saved more lives. But it was complicated. The bomb disposal unit went by road – that’s six hours – and the local military is not trained to deal with terror attacks.
The original version of this story identified Abdirahim Abdullahi as a law school graduate. According to the University of Nairobi, however, Abdullahi never completed his degree. The article has been updated.
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© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kenya-continues-to-seek-answers-after-slaughter-at-garissa-university/
we should give our gov a second chance to react to such situations