Nairobi attack: mall worker tells of grenade assault as teams aid survivors

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/24/nairobi-attack-grenade-survivors-westgate-mall

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At the MP Shah hospital in Nairobi there was a surreal atmosphere of solidarity among patients and visitors. Some people huddled on the ramps linking the wards, swapping experiences. Some, visiting friends, compared the gravity of their loved-ones' injuries and pending operations.

One young man attracted a small crowd. With a nervous gesture he pulled up the olive green sleeve of his standard-issue hospital clothing to reveal an almost perfectly round shrapnel wound in his arm, a gash of shocking pink and white in his brown skin. His arm was badly bruised and he had similar wounds on both legs.

Francis, 23, worked in the Nakumatt supermarket, a popular shop on the second floor of the Westgate mall. He was helping shoppers in the electronics section on Saturday when he heard a loud bang.

"At first I thought it was just a tyre bursting, the sound was coming from near the entrance," said Francis, who did not want to reveal his last name. "But then we heard people running and screaming, and we realised something was wrong."

He tried to escape by running to the car-park on the rooftop of the second floor in the mall.

"I ran there thinking I could get away, but when I got there they had already arrived," he said. "The attackers started shooting people. There was a gate in the wall, which I tried to climb to get out, but they saw me and threw a grenade."

He added: "The shrapnel hit me and there was blood pouring down my arm  and my legs. I collapsed in a pool of blood. [The attackers] thought I was  dead, and that saved my life."

Three days after the attack Francis still clearly shaken by his experience. "Another man who was hit by the grenade got up and tried to run away, and they just gunned him down," he said.

In the end he escaped by crawling and jumping down into a flower bed on the floor below. "Luckily the flowers had been watered, and there was mud, which was soft," he said.

The attack on the Westgate shopping centre has prompted a mass outpouring of sympathy, donations and volunteering in Kenya.

At the Oshwal centre, less than a mile from the mall, dozens of counsellors and psychologists huddled on plastic chairs, attending a briefing on how to help survivors of the attack.

The giant Jain temple and community centre, a complex of pink and cream concrete, with Indian-inspired domes and turrets, has been converted into an operational hub for the Red Cross, security and counselling personnel.

Volunteers were dishing out rice and samosas from industrial-sized vats, while the families of people still missing in the shopping centre sat down with the Red Cross database team, hoping to track down their loved ones.

A middle-aged lady, dressed in a black and white jacket punctuated by red roses, whispered details about her 25-year old son, who was still missing, in the hope that the team of volunteers could help. His name was not on the list, and she left hurriedly, too upset to  speak.

It is unclear how many people are still unaccounted for, but a Red Cross spokesperson said that teams in Nairobi had managed to successfully locate and re-unite 21 missing persons.

"I couldn't just sit at home and watch them calling for people to come and help on TV," said Regina Gitao, a psychologist who has been giving support to the bereaved and injured since Sunday.

She added: "At this point we are just doing what we can. We are not necessarily at the stage of actually talking to people about their feelings. We are attending to their needs – whether that is looking for a list, or a hug, or anything they might need. We are looking for the indicators of stress before we diagnose people with trauma, but I am seeing those indicators a lot."

But as support teams tried to restore normality at the Oshwal, sporadic gunshots and explosions could still be heard from the mall.

"To think that there are still hostages in there – we don't know whether they are dead or alive" said Gladys, 19, who survived the attack by hiding in a store cupboard at the centre for four hours until escaping through a loading bay. She was now helping the Red Cross.

She added: "I am shaken too. But after seeing how many people were injured, I can  only be grateful that I came out alive."

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