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Hostages feared after masked gunmen attack university in eastern Kenya Gunmen take students hostage in Kenya university attack
(about 1 hour later)
Students and teachers are feared held hostage after masked gunmen stormed a university campus in eastern Kenya on Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding at least 30 others, police and the Red Cross said. Masked gunmen are holding an unknown number of students hostage after a dawn raid on a university compound along the volatile Kenya-Somalia border that left at least eight people dead.
Police who encircled the campus at the university in Garissa were joined by Kenyan soldiers as the standoff continued over several hours, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper and Capital FM radio station reported. Attackers thought to be from Somalia’s al-Shabaab terror group stormed into the university shortly after 5am in the town of Garissa, about 90 miles from the border with Somalia.
Reporters at the scene said students who escaped said the gunmen had gone on a killing spree. “They are just shooting randomly,” eyewitness Augustine Alanga told the BBC World Service. Related: Al-Shabaab video shows how far it lags behind in 'jihadi draft'
Arnolda Shiundu, a spokesman for the Kenya Red Cross, told the Guardian that the attackers set off a blast at the gate of the university hostels before storming the compound and taking hostages.
“We have evacuated about 30 casualties, most of them with bullet wounds. Four are in a critical state and Kenya Defence Forces personnel have airlifted three victims, including two soldiers, to Nairobi,” she said.
Witnesses said the attackers had shot indiscriminately at students and teachers who had been woken up by the mayhem. “They are just shooting randomly,” Augustine Alanga told the BBC World Service.
#BREAKING: Some of students who escaped #Garissa uni college attack report of warzone situation where gunmen stormed & went on killing spree#BREAKING: Some of students who escaped #Garissa uni college attack report of warzone situation where gunmen stormed & went on killing spree
A policewoman told Reuters the gunmen were likely to have taken hostages because many students remain trapped inside the campus, home to an estimated 500 people. At least 50 students managed to escape to a nearby military facility after the initial sounds of gunfire, according to the Red Cross.
“Two guards who were manning the gate at the university have been killed,” she said. “We can hear gunshots from inside the compound but at this point we can’t tell who is shooting at who or what.” A policewoman told Reuters the gunmen were likely to have taken hostages because many students remain trapped inside the campus. “Two guards who were manning the gate at the university have been killed,” she said. “We can hear gunshots from inside the compound but at this point we can’t tell who is shooting at who or what.”
Kenya Red Cross, quoting local health officials, said that 30 people had been taken to hospital, “the majority” with gunshot wounds. At least four were reported to be in a serious condition. Witnesses described a scene of carnage with a huge crater left behind following the blast at the gate.
BBC Africa’s Bashkas Jugsoda’ay was on the scene and said that the gunmen stormed the campus at 4am local time. Fighting had continued since then. Kenya’s new police chief, Joseph Boinett, who was appointed after the previous police commissioner was forced to retire following a spate of attacks in northern Kenya, said in a statement police were “engaged in an elaborate process of flushing out the gunmen from the hostels”.
Kenya’s National Police Service said in a written statement that armed attackers forced their way onto the campus by shooting at guards, triggering a “fierce shootout” with police guarding student hostels. “I urge Kenyans to remain calm as our officers work to make sure that the attackers are ejected from the hostel and normalcy returns within the shortest time possible.”
The statement, which did not mention a death toll, said police and members of other security agencies were “engaged in an elaborate process of flushing out the gunmen from the hostels.”
Official report of current status vide Garissa attack. Thank you for your support. pic.twitter.com/I08RUALlFGOfficial report of current status vide Garissa attack. Thank you for your support. pic.twitter.com/I08RUALlFG
Kenya’s northern and eastern regions, which are near the Somali border, have suffered many attacks blamed on al-Qaida-linked Somali Islamist group, al-Shabab, Kenya has been hit by a series of attacks blamed on al-Shabaab since its troops were deployed in Somalia in 2011 to tackle the al-Qaida affiliate. The UN-Backed African Union troops have pushed al-Shabaab from virtually all major populated centres in the country but al-Shabaab have hit back with a series of terror attacks in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda, another country contributing troops.
Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for sending troops into Somalia to fight the militants. Kenya sent its troops there in 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants following cross-border attacks. The four-day siege of the Westgate mall in Nairobi in September 2013 that left 67 dead was the most spectacular al-Shabaab atrocity so far but the north of Kenya, which is primarily settled by Kenyan Somalis, has been the scene of a string of attacks, including the massacre of dozens of bus passengers in November.
Garissa is 150km from Somalia. The town’s streets were close to empty after the gunmen attacked. Britain and Australia issued travel advisories warning against all travel to the north of Kenya and the Coast province last week. The tourism industry, the biggest source of employment at the Coast, has been seriously affected by falling arrival numbers due to the attacks.
#Kenya update: empty streets at #Garissa township as Univ College under attack. 2 killed, 30 injured. "@maandeeq254 pic.twitter.com/totqwbu3Vx North-east Kenya is one of the most impoverished parts of the country, where residents blame the state for years of marginalisation that has made the region an easy target for al-Shabaab operations and recruitment.
Last month, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for attacks in the county of Mandera on the Somali border in which twelve people died. Four of them died in an attack on the convoy of Mandera County Governor Ali Roba. Efforts have been made to reverse the economic depredations in the area. The university, opened in 2011, is one of the key projects rolled out by the government. It has a student population of about 900, many of them from other parts of the country. The pattern in other al-Shabaab attacks in recent years has been for the militants to separate Christians from Muslims and kill them at close range.
Al-Shabab carried out large-scale attacks in Mandera last year. The militants hijacked a bus and singled out 28 non-Muslims forcing them to lie on the ground before shooting them dead. Ten days later, 36 non-Muslim quarry workers were killed by the extremists.
Police statistics show that 312 people have been killed in al-Shabab attacks in Kenya from 2012 to 2014. Thirty-eight people were killed and 149 wounded in Garissa in the same period, according to police statistics.