Kenyans struggle to unite in the face of tragedy

Kenyans were struggling to come to terms with the terrorist attack that killed 147 people. Families searched for their dead at a Nairobi mortuary, where they had been flown for identification, while the Red Cross appealed for blood donations for injured victims fighting for their lives. Militiamen from the Somali group Al Shabaab had stormed a university campus in Garissa, about 350 km north-east of Nairobi, last Thursday, gunning down students.
The 16-hour siege finally ended with the killing of the four terrorists, according to the government. The attack was the deadliest ever by Al Shabaab, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group which Somalia is battling with the help of a 20,000-strong African Union force. Al Shabaab has often targeted Kenya, because of its participation in the military effort.
A four-day siege of a Nairobi shopping mall that killed 67 people in September 2013 was followed by a string of smaller attacks, especially on the coast, where they dealt a heavy blow to the country’s key tourism industry.
Many Kenyans vowed last Friday to unite against terrorism and to not allow themselves to be divided along religious lines.
“We have to pray for the (extremists) to change their lives, so God can change their minds,” said Patrick Mukala, a preacher based outside Nairobi. “When there is an attack like this, there are no divisions. Christian, Muslim, we are all brothers, all Kenyans,” Mukala said.
Anglican bishop Julius Kalu urged Kenyans to resist attempts to divide them into religious factions, while the Council of Imams called for action against messages of hate.
Nearly 80 per cent of Kenyans are Christians, 10 per cent are Muslims, while the rest follow indigenous religions or other faiths, according to government statistics.
“We just need to keep praying for our nation, Kenya. God sees and knows our sorrows, and giving up is not an option,” Twitter user Felix Wanjala posted.
“This is not the time to point fingers, it is time to pray for the families of the fallen,” a Standard reader called Swaiguru wrote on the newspaper’s website.
Garissa is a town of 120,000, which is 140 km from the Somali border. It has suffered several smaller Al Shabaab attacks in recent years, and parents said their children studying at the university had warned them the region was not safe.
Enoch Sikolia, a reporter for the local news outlet NTV, said from Garissa that local people are more frightened than ever.
“The manner in which the attack happened was terrifying. Those who are living around the university and have business there have been crippled, businesswise. They are terrified and angry,” Sikolia said over the phone.
“It is extremely hard to understand what is happening in this country, especially when it involves students, young lives, people who are working on their future,” he added.
Having lost nearly all major towns to Somali and AU troops, Al Shabaab has increasingly turned to terrorist tactics, killing dozens of people in suicide bombings in Mogadishu so far this year.
The massacre in Garissa came less than two weeks after Kenya announced the creation of a high-tech security system including buffer zones and electronic surveillance on its 700-km border with Somalia.
“We have suffered unnecessarily due to a shortage of security personnel,” President Uhuru Kenyatta admitted on Thursday, rushing to announce that 10,000 more police would be recruited.
Police are carrying out a manhunt for the suspected mastermind of the Garissa attack, and have imposed an overnight curfew on the Garissa area.
Security was also beefed up in the counties of Mombasa on the coast and Marsabit in the north, with Mombasa officials announcing police deployments across the county.
Such measures did not reassure Kenyans, who were increasingly questioning the need for their country to participate in trying to pacify Somalia.
“Why are we fighting someone else’s war?” Standard reader Phylis Wanjiku asked.
That’s a question the government will need to answer.
Meanwhile, a government spokesman said that one of the terrorists who killed 147 people at the Kenyan university was the son of a government official.
Mwenda Njoka named the terrorist as former lawyer Abdiram Abdullahi.
“His father reported to security agencies that his son had gone missing and the authorities were looking for him by the time the attack happened,” Njoka said. “(The father) was helping security agencies to try and trace the boy.”
It was not yet clear if Abdullahi was one of the four terrorists who blew themselves up at the end of the 16-hour siege.

http://omanobserver.om/kenyans-struggle-to-unite-in-the-face-of-tragedy/