Kenyan survivor: Al-Shabaab gunmen fired in jubilation

Kenyan survivor: Al-Shabaab gunmen fired in jubilation

Family members and relatives cry outside the morgue on November 22, 2014  in Nairobi, where they received bodies of the victims killed in dawn attack on a bus in which 28 non-Muslims were singled out and killed about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the town of Mandera near Kenya’s border with Somalia.  PHOTO|AFP.

Nairobi. Survivor says Al-Shabaab gunmen fired in jubilation after Mandera executions

Gunmen fired wildly in the air in jubilation after they killed 28 people perceived to be non-Muslims during the attack at Arabiya in Mandera near the Kenya-Somali border.

One of the passengers in the ill-fated bus, who did not want his identity revealed, said the masked gunmen fired the shots from G3 rifles, AK47s, pistols and light machine guns.

He said they spoke in Swahili, English and Somali languages and were in military-like attire. He said that on arrival at Arabiya area, about six heavily armed men stopped the bus. One of them had a rocket propeller.

They fired at the left side of the bus before they forcefully made their way inside while brandishing their firearms.

“They spoke to the bus driver and the conductor in Somali, roughed them up before commandeering the vehicle off the main road for about one or two kilometres towards the Somali border,” said the passenger.

As they proceeded, the bus got stuck in a muddy section of the road and all the passengers were asked to alight.

“At this juncture, more gunmen appeared from nowhere and we were asked to identify ourselves,” said the passenger.

The Al-Shabaab militia asked each of the passengers which faith they profess. Identification cards (ID) and mobile phones belonging to the non-Muslims were confiscated and they were separated from the rest of the passengers.

“They asked how many times I pray in a day, asked me to recite a Koran verse and also greeted one in Islamic. If one failed to answer these questions, then you’d be asked to lie on a muddy patch of the road facing down,” he said.

About 30 of the remaining passengers said to be Muslims were then asked to go back to the bus before the criminals cocked their guns and shot 28 people, killing them on the spot.

“They blew off their heads. Just like that,” the passenger described the killing.

Preliminary reports indicate that about 17 teachers were executed. Others were police officers and health care workers who had been posted to the area and were leaving for their rural homes. “As quickly as they killed them, they then disappeared. It was too horrific to watch and we only came out of the bus minutes later after they had left. (NMG)