Kenya: Fresh Wounds Of Westgate Mall Attack One Year Later

By Staff Writer

Thousands of Kenyans gathered in country’s capital on Sunday, September 21 for an emotional memorial marking one year since Al Qaeda linked Al Shaabab gunmen stormed Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall, took hostages, massacred at least 67 people and left hundreds of others wounded.

The East African nation was on high alert during the anniversary, which comes just weeks after the Al Shaabab's revered leader and the alleged mastermind of the Westgate attack, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed in a US air strike in southern Somalia.

A year later, the survivors of the terror attack still cannot shake off the images of that tragic incident and fateful day as the victims are still waiting for the answers to what really happened during the four agonizing days which saw the entire nation held hostage.

At the now-empty Westgate Mall, all is quiet. Construction crews are working to restore the building that at midday on Saturday 21 September, 2013, was the scene of unimaginable horror when four armed men from Al Shaabab militant group stormed the mall, spraying bullets at anyone randomly.

In Nairobi's Karura forest, close to 2,500 people, many of them survivors or bereaved families were holding inter-faith prayers and a memorial procession. A plaque bearing the names of the victims will also be unveiled.

The Islamist attackers claimed they did it out of revenge for Kenya’s military operations in Somalia.
In a series of events that are still unclear, it took Kenyan forces four days to declare the mall free and clear.

Harish Rabadia and his friend Karsan were among the first civilians to get to the scene. One was armed with a pistol and the other with nothing. They helped the injured escape the mall. Today the two are regarded as heroes. But Karsan said behind the courage lies regret, bitterness and pain.

“Those who were killed… it is still in my mind. It’s now one year, that’s not far… it will be very hard for me to forget what happened here in my life,” said Karsan.

"My life is completely shattered, it's been very hard to cope," said 62-year-old Amul Shah, whose son 38, was among those cut down during the siege of the mall by insurgents who tossed grenades and raked shoppers and staff with bullets and shrapnel’s.“He helped several children escape from the attack, but he was not lucky himself. He was so selfless."

Shamim Allu, a radio presenter who survived the attack, is still limping and using crutches but thankful to be alive.

"I was shot so many times, that I went numb," she said.

Kalpesh Solanki, 44, was meeting with friends in a coffee shop on the third floor when the attack began. She was shot in the head but survived, saying, "I have learnt how to live positively".

Harveen Sihra, a 16-year-old girl, was shot three times. While she has physically recovered, she said she still thinks about it every day.

Sorting through the mental images gives her some relief, but this anniversary is especially difficult. “If you speak to a person who hasn’t lost someone, they can say ‘I feel a bit better after one year.’ But for us, it’s still the same because we lost someone,” said Sihra.

Relatives of the victims also laid wreaths of flowers at a garden in the forest where 67 tree seedlings were planted last year, and commemorations later ended in the day with a candlelight concert at the National Museum, the venue of a memorial exhibition that opened this week by Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta, dedicated to the survivors as well as to the civilians who risked their lives to rescue those trapped in the mall during the early, chaotic hours of the attack.

“Our resilience is incomparable. The unity we show in times of crisis should never be forgotten. And as I have said many times before, we should always be our brother’s keeper,” said Kenyatta.

All four gunmen were believed to have died in the mall, their bodies burned and crushed by tonnes of rubble after a section of the complex collapsed following a fierce blaze started by the fighting.

The Sunday Nation newspaper named the four as Hassan Abdi Mohamed Dhuhulow, a Norwegian national of Somali origin, Somali national Mohamed Abdi Nur Said, and Ahmed Hassan Abukar and Yahye Osman Ahmed, both Somali refugees, all aged between 19 and 23.

The assailants hunted down shoppers in supermarket aisles and singled out non-Muslims for execution, the Mumbai style in India 2008. They then fought it out with Kenyan security forces before the siege was finally declared over four days after the first shot was fired.

Abbas Gullet, the head of the Kenyan Red Cross, said it was a time for Kenyans to unite.

"When faced with such adversity, the only thing we can do is to stand together," he told mourners, reminding them that despite widespread criticism of the security forces who were accused of incompetence and even looting shops, they were police and soldiers who lost their lives.

In an editorial published by the Sunday Nation, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also vowed the country would not give in to the militia insurgents.

"We have pushed with greater resolve to defeat terrorists and criminals who target innocent people living in Kenya. We have maintained our focus in Somalia, where our defence forces continue to incur heroic sacrifices to defeat terrorists and their sponsors," he wrote.