Islamist 'Youth' Slaughtering Christian Youth

"They investigated our area. They knew everything."
"We just wondered whether to come out or not."
Helen Titus, Garissa University College survivor

"They were shot there and then. [The killers shouted] 'God is great'!"
Nina Kozel, student, Garissa University College

"Kenya is safe as any country in the world. The travel advisories being issued by our friends  are not genuine."
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta

The very day preceding the Al Shabab attack targeting Christian students in the town of Garissa in the dorms of Garissa University College, the country's president dismissed the warning that Britain had noted, advising "against all but essential travel" to parts of Kenya, specifically including Garissa. A second warning was issued by Australia, mentioning Nairobi and Mombasa as possible venues for terrorist attacks.

"Our inaction is betrayal to these Garissa victims", posted a Kenyan on Twitter with a photograph of what appeared to be a hundred bodies lying face down on a courtyard smothered with blood. As good a barometer as any that Kenyans are feeling fairly vulnerable to a violence that does not knock politely at any portal requesting entrance in a society that would prefer to think of itself as being secure and well protected.

The attack on the university appears to have been well planned. The masked attackers, strapped with explosives and armed with AK47s took dozens of hostages in a dormitory while battling troops and police. A scene of horrifying violence that took a full thirteen hours of firing between security forces and a handful of implacable Islamist terrorists to conclude. Leaving, according to Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery, 148 people killed by the gunmen.

Another 104 people were wounded. Of the dead, 142 were university students, three were policemen, and another three were soldiers. Four or five gunmen took that incredible toll on human life. One of the first things that the gunmen perpetrated on entering the campus early on Thursday was to proceed directly to a lecture hall where Christian students were in prayer session.

Helen Titus, a 21-year-old literature student being treated for a bullet wound to the wrist spoke of smearing blood from classmates on her face and hair, then lying perfectly still in the hope the gunmen would believe her to be dead and not linger the vicinity. She told how the gunmen informed students hiding in their dormitories that they should exit, they wouldn't be killed. "Ladies" in particular would be spared.

In the event, their cunning did little to allay the fear of those in hiding. And they were able to witness that women were shot while Christians were targeted. Students were asked whether they were Muslim or Christian, with the Muslims being given leave to absent themselves, and the Christians slaughtered by the Islamist jihadis.

Nina Kozel described being suddenly awakened by screaming. Many students, she said, escaped by rushing to the fences and leaping over them, suffering bruises but saving their lives. Many men, however, unable to escape, hid under beds and in closets in their rooms, and they were shot to death.
Babu Owino, chairman of the Students Organization for Nairobi University, was critical of the government's reaction to external warning.

Despite the heightened alert, only two armed security guards had been posted on duty at the university on Thursday. And they now too are both dead.