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Nairobi — Kenyan troops and rescue workers scoured the wreckage of a Nairobi shopping mall yesterday 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 Shabaab 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 on 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.
A 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 said.
“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 on 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 Shabaab claiming civilians were being held, and Kenyan special forces described the final stand-off as delicate – with gunmen running and hiding in supermarket aisles, store rooms, a cinema and casino and placing booby traps.
Shabaab 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 7 July 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 on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the militant group behind the four-day takeover of a Nairobi mall claimed yesterday that Kenyan government forces used chemical weapons in their assault on the building, then carried out “a demolition” to cover evidence and buried 137 hostages.
In a series of Twitter posts from an account believed to be genuine, al-Shabaab said that “having failed to defeat the mujahideen inside the mall, the Kenyan govt disseminated chemical gases to end the siege”.
They added “to cover their crime, the Kenyan govt carried out a demolition to the building, burying evidence and all hostages under the rubble”.
Government spokesperson Manoah Esipisu immediately denied the claim, saying no chemical weapons were used and that the official civilian death toll remains 61.
“Al-Shabaab is known for wild allegations and there is absolutely no truth to what they’re saying,” he said. But officials said the death count will likely rise. Estimates varied between only a few bodies to dozens of bodies possibly still inside the mall.
A British man was arrested in Kenya following the terrorist attack, Britain’s Foreign Office said.
The agency said in a statement yesterday that British officials are ready to provide assistance to the man. Officials would not provide his name or details. He is believed to be in his 30s. Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper said he was arrested on Monday as he tried to board a flight from Nairobi to Turkey. The newspaper said his face was bruised and he was acting suspiciously.
The Kenyan government said forensic experts from the United States, Britain and Israel would be assisting them in their investigation of the attack.
“The mall is sealed off. It is a crime scene,” Esipisu said. — AP
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