First funerals of Kenyan university attack victims
Print Edition
THE first funerals of students killed in a university massacre of almost 150 people in Kenya were taking place yesterday, while some parents were still waiting to receive the remains of their loved ones.
In Nairobi, hundreds of students gathered as the body of Angela Nyokabi Githakwa, known as Jojo, was taken from the mortuary to her home village in Kiambu, some 20 kilometers to the north.
Friends and family sobbed around the white coffin.
On Thursday, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta signed letters to the families of those killed, expressing his and the country’s condolences.
“I promise that as a nation, we shall never forget them, nor forgive those who took her life,” Kenyatta’s letter to one student read.
The massacre, Kenya’s deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, claimed the lives of 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers at the university in the northeastern town of Garissa.
Kenyatta’s letter has been given to the families of 130 victims, with the remaining to be “signed after identification procedures are complete,” a statement from the president’s office said.
In the main mortuary in Nairobi, some bodies were being collected yesterday, with more than 20 coffins lined up.
Dozens of people, however, were still waiting to collect the bodies of their relatives over a week since the attack.
Jackson Kilimo waited with a somber family group to collect three victims, who all came from Kenya’s Marakwet district, 380 kilometers northwest of Nairobi.
“We identified the bodies the day after the tragedy happened, but it took time because the government wanted to be 100 percent sure of the identities, and the post-mortem procedure takes time,” Kilimo said.
Kenya’s media have raised questions about the exact death toll, saying some students are still missing who were not included on the official list of those killed. However, the government has rejected the claims as “unfounded rumors.”
Amid the gloom at the mortuary, there was one rare piece of good news.
One family who had camped out for the week in a desperate wait found out on Thursday that their missing child had been staying with friends and was alive.
“We found one people alive,” said George Williams, an event manager helping to organize support for those waiting.
“The family had been camping here but the student had gone with friends without telling his parents”.
Kenyan warplanes this week destroyed two Islamist bases, following a promise by Kenyatta that he would retaliate “in the severest way possible.”
The al-Shebab fled their power base in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu in 2011, and continue to battle the African Union Mission to Somalia sent to drive them out that includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
Al-Shebab has warned of a “long, gruesome war” unless Kenya withdraws troops from Somalia.
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