Ken first contacted his sister in the morning to know how she was faring on after getting news of the attack.
He says his panicky sister said she was not safe only to be called later by the attackers and instructed to contact President Uhuru Kenyatta to withdraw the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers in Somalia.
He said when the attackers called him later and connected him to listen to his sister conduct her last prayer after which he heard gun shots. The attackers later informed him that they had executed her.
Millicent Murugi from Embu.
Millicent who is a second year student is eight months pregnant, narrated how she smeared herself with blood of her dead colleague and appeared as if she was dead to fool the Al-Shabaab militants.
“I slowly took blood from a dead colleague lying besides me and smeared it all over my head and hands. At this time, only one attacker was in the room as the rest went upstairs. I played dead for 10 hours despite being heavily pregnant,” a tearful Ms Murugi said.
She said the attackers tormented their victims saying;
“Your security agents are cowards and cannot save you.”
Then they would shoot them as others watched.
Alfred Mutua, 23, a second year student.
I was in class at 5am preparing for a Continuous Assessment Test with a colleague.
“At about 5.30am, I heard gunshots and then they stopped. I continued reading. Then someone stormed into the lecture hall. His face was not covered. I looked at him. I saw the gun. I looked at him again, our eyes locked. He fired!” said Mutua.
Mutua says his colleague had already dashed across him even before the bullets began flying.
The bullet hit his colleague on the head and blew out the brain. He fell on top of Mutua. Mutua’s right leg was still atop a chair, when a bullet caught his heel. He lay still.
“I couldn’t move. The guy kept firing. He stopped and listened, and then walked out,” Mutua said.
Juan Peter. 23, a second year Bachelors of Business Management student
“I was asleep. Then I heard gunshots. They were coming from the side of the lecture halls. It was dark. We got out of the hostel and stood at the verandah,” he says.
“After a few minutes, it was all quiet. As we stood there, two people emerged. One was wearing like an Administration Police in full uniform. The other one was wearing a white t-shirt with black stripes. It is a common fashion in Garissa. We were at the hostel door.
“As they walk towards us, we thought they were policemen. But their gait was out of step. We waited. As I weighed the options, the guys got closer and out of the blue, they just began firing at us!”
“We ran to the back of another hostel which is still under construction. Some of us were busy creating an escape route on the fence. We had nothing to cut the barbed wire, so, we went to remove the iron sheets. Others played hide-and-seek with terrorists as a diversion.
When we looked back and saw many had left, Brad left. They shot at him. “I was cornered. It was a bit dark, but the sun was almost coming up. I just kept rolling as one of them shot,” Juan doesn’t remember which one. “When I got to the corner, I was hit on the left shoulder. I went still. Then he turned and kept shooting in the other direction.
I used that chance to jump into a sewer line. I think he saw the movement and continued firing. I lay flat, and I could see bullets hitting the wall and falling next to me. One got me and scraped my abdomen”.
All this time, Juan says he kept on turning and when he got a chance, he went through the escape route and he met a police reservist. The militant gave chase. The reservist shot in the air, the militant retreated, and Juan ran all the way to a mound of building stones. At the end, Juan was shot on his left shoulder, twice in the abdomen and one on the chest but he survived.
Duncan Obwanu, 25, a second year student
Our morning worship had began at 5 am because their usual prayer venue was unavailable because there were no lights. They did not suspect foul play.
“We shifted to a smaller classroom and while we stood in a circle singing, two hooded men walked in pointing guns at us and began shooting , sending most of us on the floor and blood flowing from those injured,” he says.
He sustained a gunshot wound on one of his hands and as he dived on the ground for cover, a bullet brushed on the back of his head, forcing him to pretend he was dead to discourage further shooting from the attackers.
“I lay flat on the ground and felt warmness on my head and hand and saw blood flowing but I lay still as the attackers confirmed that we were all dead before they proceeded towards the hostels,” he says.
As the pain increased, Duncan says he bit his lip and withstood the pain until KDF came to their rescue and facilitated travel to Garissa and later airlifted to Nairobi.
Samuel Odongo, 22, a second year student
Samuel on this day decided to wake up early to read. While preparing to go to the bathroom, around 5.30 am, one of his bedmates cautioned him that there were gunshots outside their hostel and before they could establish their direction, two hooded young men stormed in shooting at their colleagues sleeping close to the entrance.
“I escaped to hide in the bathroom and when I realised that I had already been shot on my thigh, I decided to lie down,” he says.
An hour later, KDF solders rescued him and his colleagues from the hide out at the washrooms. The targeted hostels, Tana River and Elgon, hosted first and second years respectively.
Article credits: Standard Media, Citizen, Nation Media
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