Thousands of mourners gathered in Kenya’s capital on Sunday for emotional commemorations marking a year since Somali Islamist gunmen attacked Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall and massacred at least 67 people.
The east African nation is on high alert for the anniversary, which comes just weeks after the Shebab’s reclusive leader and the alleged mastermind of the attack, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed in a US air strike in southern Somalia.
In Nairobi’s Karura forest, close to 2,500 people — many of them survivors or bereaved families — were holding inter-faith prayers and a memorial procession. A memorial stone with a plaque bearing the names of those confirmed dead was also unveiled.
“My life is completely shattered, it’s been very hard to cope,” said 62-year-old Amul Shah, whose son was among those cut down when a small group of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters walked into the upmarket mall, tossing grenades and raking shoppers and staff with machine gun fire.
Shah said his 38-year-old son was looking after children taking part in a cooking competition on the mall’s rooftop when the attackers struck. “He helped several children escape from the attack, but he was not lucky himself. He was so selfless.”
Fred Bosire, a former shop salesman who was shot in the legs and played dead to survive, said he had yet to recover physically or emotionally, with the additional burden of having lost is job.
“I was shot several times on my left leg and pretended to be dead fearing the worst. The attackers would go and come back. So, I lay there next to dead bodies for more than nine hours before I was rescued,” he said.
“Life has never been the same. That attack disrupted everything. I lost my job and now I have to depend on my wife, a casual labourer. It’s tough,” he told AFP after laying a wreath at the memorial.
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A police officer tries to secure an area inside the Westgate Shopping Centre where gunmen went on a …
Relatives of the victims will also lay wreaths of flowers at a garden in the forest where 67 tree seedlings were planted last year. Commemorations were also held outside the boarded-up mall, and were to end later in the day with a candlelight concert at the National Museum, the venue of a memorial exhibition that opened this week.
All four gunmen were believed to have died in the mall, their bodies burned and crushed by tonnes of rubble after a section of the complex collapsed following a fierce blaze started by the fighting.
– Appeals for unity –
The Sunday Nation newspaper named the four as Hassan Abdi Mohamed Dhuhulow, a Norwegian national of Somali origin, Somali national Mohamed Abdi Nur Said, and Ahmed Hassan Abukar and Yahye Osman Ahmed, both Somali refugees. The four were all aged between 19 and 23.
Apparently inspired by the Mumbai attack of 2008, the gunmen hunted down shoppers in supermarket aisles and singled out non-Muslims for execution. They then fought it out with Kenyan security forces before the siege was finally declared over four days after the first shot was fired.
The Shebab said the attack was revenge for Kenya’s sending of troops to fight the extremists in Somalia as part of an African Union force. They have launched a string of subsequent attacks in Kenya, including a wave of massacres in the coastal region, which has badly affected the country’s key tourist industry.
The head of the Kenyan Red Cross, Abbas Gullet, said it was a time for Kenyans to unite.
“When faced with such adversity, the only thing we can do is to stand together,” he told mourners, reminding them that despite widespread criticism of the security forces — who were accused of incompetence and even looting shops — they were police and soldiers who lost their lives.
In an editorial published by the Sunday Nation, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also vowed the country would not give in to the Shebab.
“We have pushed with greater resolve to defeat terrorists and criminals who target innocent people living in Kenya. We have maintained our focus in Somalia, where our defence forces continue to incur heroic sacrifices to defeat terrorists and their sponsors,” he wrote.
On Saturday, Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo said security forces were on high alert for the anniversary.
“We are prepared in case of anything. Specialised units are on the ground and we have intensified patrols during this period of the anniversary,” Kimaiyo told reporters.
Kenya Westgate massacre: developments one year on
Here is an update on investigations and developments one year after the Westgate Mall terrorist
One year after Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militants stormed Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, killing at least 67 people in a four-day siege that began September 21, multiple questions remain.
Here is an update on investigations and developments:
CASUALTIES
The official toll is 67 victims. Western officials suggested as many as 94 could have died, but forensic experts say evidence based on body parts matches the toll of 67.
Security-camera footage, as well as bodies at the morgue, provide no evidence to back up gruesome media reports of torture, nor that hostages were ever held.
ATTACKERS
Security cameras show only four attackers, not the dozen that officials reported during the siege. All four are believed to have died inside the mall.
Al-Shabaab said they were suicide commandos, but the group has never confirmed directly that they died, and no video or statements from the attackers have been released.
However, forensic experts say the bodies of four suspected attackers were found. Two have been named.
A fierce fire broke out on the third day of the attack, after a rocket was fired at the gunmen, and a large part of the building collapsed.
WHO WERE THE GUNMEN?
Two alleged attackers were named in court documents as 23-year-old Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, who had spent time in Norway, and Mohammed Abdinur Said.
All were reportedly ethnic Somalis.
They were armed with AK-47 rifles and grenades, not the heavy machine guns initially reported.
TRIALS
The trial of four men accused of helping the gunmen opened in January in Nairobi.
The suspects — Hussein Hassan Mustafa, Mohammed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar and Adan Mohammed Abdikadir — are accused of providing support to the gunmen. All deny the charges.
The trial continues on September 23.
SOMALIA STRIKES
In early September, US air strikes killed Al-Shabaab chief Ahmed Abdi Godane, who praised the Westgate attack and vowed to bring “rivers of blood” to Kenya.
US special forces raided southern Somalia in October 2013 hunting Al-Shabaab commander Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, also known as “Ikrima”. They missed their target.
In August, Somali government forces and African Union soldiers, including Kenyan troops, launched “Operation Indian Ocean”, a major offensive in southern Somalia aimed at seizing key ports from Al-Shabaab and cutting off multimillion-dollar exports of charcoal.
AL-SHABAAB THREAT
Al-Shabaab insurgents have lost almost all towns in Somalia, but since the Westgate attack they have launched a series of brazen attacks inside Somalia, including on the parliament and presidential palace.
The extremists have also claimed responsibility for a series of deadly raids on Kenya’s coastal region, as well as a bomb attack in a restaurant in Djibouti, which, like Kenya, is part of the AU force in Somalia.
Ugandan police last week arrested a suspected Al-Shabaab bomb cell, whose members were believed to have been planning a new Westgate-style attack.
‘WHITE WIDOW’
Despite witness reports, there is no sign on security-camera footage of a female attacker. At the time, there was widespread speculation of the involvement of a British woman dubbed the “White Widow”, 30-year-old Muslim convert Samantha Lewthwaite.
Kenyan police say they have lost the trail of Lewthwaite, subject of an Interpol “red notice” warrant for her arrest.
