SHOCK, DEFIANCE IN KENYA AFTER SHEBAB MASSACRE 148 AT UNIVERSITY

GARISSA, Kenya – The bodies of the 148 students and security officers massacred by Somalia’s Shebab Islamists in a Kenyan university were flown Friday to Nairobi where their desperate and grieving loved ones were waiting.

The day-long siege of Garissa University was Kenya’s deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the bloodiest ever by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants.

The Kenyan government, however, vowed that it would not be “intimidated”.

Amid international revulsion at the attack, US President Barack Obama called Kenyan leader Uhuru Kenyatta and vowed to stand “hand-in-hand” with his government and the Kenyan people.

• Pope Francis condemned the massacre as an act of “senseless brutality.”
• Survivors recounted how the masked gunmen taunted students before killing them at the campus near the Somali border.
• Many were forced to phone their parents to urge them to call for Kenyan troops to leave Somalia — before shooting them anyway.
• As the gunmen prowled the corridors hunting down more people to kill, some students smeared blood from their dead friends over their bodies to pretend they too had been shot.

“There were bodies everywhere in execution lines, we saw people whose heads had been blown off, bullet wounds everywhere, it was a grisly mess,” said Reuben Nyaora, an aid worker who helped the wounded. 
Others appeared to have been killed by knives.

The day-long siege ended with four gunmen killed in a hail of gunfire, and one suspect reportedly arrested.

At least 79 people were also wounded in the attack on the campus, which lies near the border with Somalia.

Source: AFP