Garissa, Kenya: At least 70 Kenyan students were massacred today when Somalia's Shebab Islamist group raided a university, the interior minister said, the country's deadliest attack since US embassy bombings in 1998. "We are mopping up the area," Interior Minster Joseph Nkaiserry told reporters, saying that four gunmen had been killed after Kenyan troops launched an assault on the final building where the insurgents had holed up for over 12 hours.
"Unfortunately, we lost... a number of lives, we have not confirmed fully, but it is in the region of 70 students, and 79 have been injured, nine of them critically," he added.
The masked gunmen began the assault before dawn, using grenades to blast open the gates of the university in the northeastern town of Garissa, near the lawless border with war-torn Somalia, before attacking students as they slept."The terrorists, 90 per cent of the threat has been eliminated... we have been able to confirm that four terrorists have been killed," he added, saying that troops were scouring the campus as the total number of gunmen was not known, but that the main operation was over.
"We are mopping up the area, and will update with the number of casualties," he said, imposing a dawn until dusk curfew on several northern and eastern Kenyan districts. The Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab claimed the pre-dawn attack, the same insurgents who carried out the Westgate shopping mall massacre in Nairobi in September 2013, when four gunmen slaughtered at least 67 people in a four-day bloodbath.
Kenya has been hit by a wave of grenade and gun attacks, often blamed on sympathisers of the Shebab and sometimes aimed at police targets, since the army crossed into southern Somalia in 2011 to attack Islamist bases
Augustine Alanga, a 21-year-old student who survived the attack at Garissa University College, described a panicked scene as gunshots rang out outside their dormitory in the pre-dawn hours when most people were still fast asleep.
The shooting became more intense almost immediately, he told The Associated Press by phone. The heavy gunfire forced some students to stay indoors as others fled with gunmen firing at them. He said he saw at least five heavily armed, masked gunmen.
"I am just now recovering from the pain as I injured myself while trying to escape. I was running barefoot," said Alanga, who was one of scores of students who managed to escape through barb-wire fencing.
At the time the attack started, morning prayers were underway at the university mosque, where students were not attacked, he said. A mortuary attendant in the town of Garissa says at least 15 people have been killed and at some 60 were injured. The attendant saw the casualties arrive by ambulance. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press. Some of the more serious wounded were being flown to Nairobi, the capital, authorities said.
Read: 'Unknown number' of hostages in Kenya university attack: Red Cross
The National Disaster Operations Centre said on Twitter that three of four dorms have been evacuated, with the gunmen cornered in one dorm. No further details were immediately available and Kenya Defence Forces have surrounded the area, journalists said, impeding their access.
Terrified students streamed out of buildings, some young men shirtless, as arriving police officers hunkered down, taking cover. The gunmen had opened fire at guards, triggering a "fierce shootout" with police guarding student dorms, Kenya's National Police Service said in a written statement. The attackers managed to get into the dorms of Garissa University College, raising the possibility of hostage-taking.
Kenya's National Disaster Operations Centre said 29 people wounded during the attack have been admitted to a local hospital, four of them in critical condition. Most have gunshot wounds, the centre said. Police and military surrounded the buildings and were trying to secure the area, police officer Musa Yego told AP.
