NAIROBI – Kenyan troops and
rescue workers scoured the wreckage of a Nairobi shopping mall Wednesday for
bodies and booby-trapped explosives after a four-day siege by Islamist gunmen
left 67 dead and dozens more missing.
Rescuers wore face masks and some
soldiers wrapped scarves around their mouths because of an overpowering stench
inside the Westgate centre, once the capital’s most upmarket mall. A large part
of the complex has collapsed after heavy explosions and a fierce fire.
Across Kenya, flags flew at half
mast at the start of three days of official mourning.
Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab
rebels claimed on Twitter that 137 hostages they had seized all died, figures
impossible to verify and higher than the number of people officially registered
as missing. They also accused Kenyan troops of using “chemical agents” to end
the stand-off.
President Uhuru Kenyatta announced
an end to the 80-hour bloodbath late Tuesday, with the “immense” loss of 61
civilians and six members of the security forces. Police said the death toll
was provisional, with the Kenyan Red Cross listing 63 people as still missing.
Top forensic experts and
investigators from Israel, the US and Britain are supporting Kenyan teams,
officials said, with many questions remaining over the identity of the
attackers, the possible presence of a British woman and American jihadists, and
how the cell got such large quantities of weapons and ammunition into the
complex.
‘Many bodies’ still inside
An AFP reporter outside the
bullet-riddled mall saw teams of sniffer dogs, which will check for explosives
and victims buried under the rubble of a collapsed part of the building. One
rescue worker said he saw “many bodies” inside.
“The army told us we would get
access to the bodies yesterday, but then said it was too dangerous for us to go
in because of booby traps and because of the part that caved in. We have to get
access today,” a Kenyan Red Cross official told AFP.
“The bodies that are still inside
the mall will have to be identified from photos. They are now in such a state
of decomposition that you can’t put a family member through that,” the official
said.
In one of the worst attacks in
Kenya’s history, the militants marched into the four-storey, part Israeli-owned
mall at midday Saturday, spraying shoppers with automatic weapons fire and
tossing grenades.
The attack, which intelligence
experts said they had no specific prior warning of, was well
planned and
prepared, with fighters stocked with enough ammunition to hold off Kenyan
forces backed by American, British and Israeli agents.
Close to 200 were wounded in the
siege, which saw running battles between militants and security forces in one
of Nairobi’s largest and most modern shopping centres. The mall is popular with
wealthy Kenyans, diplomats, UN workers and other expatriates, and was packed
when the attack began.
The siege developed into a hostage
drama with Shebab claiming civilians were being held, and Kenyan special forces
described the final stand-off as delicate — with gunman running and hiding in
supermarket aisles, store rooms, a cinema and casino and placing booby traps.
Shebab fighters said they carried
out the attack in retaliation for Kenya’s two-year battle against the
extremists’ bases in the country.
A British national was also arrested
in Nairobi, Britain’s foreign office said, without giving further details.
There has been growing media speculation
at the possible role of wanted British extremist Samantha Lewthwaite, daughter
of a British soldier and widow of suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay, who blew
himself up on a London Underground train on July 7, 2005, killing 26 people.
As well as scores of Kenyans — from
ordinary workers to the president’s nephew — many of the dead were foreigners,
including from Britain, Canada, China, France, the Netherlands, India, South
Africa and South Korea.
Five attackers were also killed and
11 suspects detained, Kenyatta said, vowing “full accountability for the
mindless destruction, deaths, pain, loss and suffering we have all undergone.”
“These cowards will meet justice, as
will their accomplices and patrons, wherever they are,” the president vowed,
saying investigations were under way to “establish the nationalities of all
those involved”.
Families of those still missing are
anxiously waiting for news of their relatives, with the Red Cross and expert
counsellors and psychologists setting up tents at Nairobi’s morgue to offer
support to sobbing relatives.
Security has also been beefed up
across the capital, but away from the burnt out Westgate complex, people in
Nairobi appeared to be trying to return, as far as possible, to everyday life.
“It is about getting on and not letting the
terrorists win by disturbing our lives any more,” said student James Kamau,
reading a newspaper full of photographs of heavily armed Kenyan soldiers
staging the final operations to clear the mall of attackers late on Tuesday.
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