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Kenya in Easter mourning for massacre victims

Published: 05 Apr 2015 - 03:40 pm | Last Updated: 15 Jan 2022 - 03:32 pm

 

Nairobi--Kenya on Sunday began three days of national mourning for the 148 people, mostly students, massacred by Somalia's Shebab militants at a university in Garissa.
Easter church services throughout the country included prayers for the victims of Thursday's attack, with flags also at half mast.
Although President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed to retaliate "in the severest way possible", there have also been calls for national unity.
Kenyatta said people's "justified anger" should not lead to "the victimisation of anyone" -- a clear reference to Kenya's large Muslim and ethnic Somali minorities.
Authorities meanwhile announced that they had identified one of the four dead Shebab gunmen as an ethnic-Somali and Kenyan national who was a A-grade pupil and law graduate -- highlighting the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab's ability to recruit within Kenya.
Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said it was "critical that parents whose children go missing or show tendencies of having been exposed to violent extremism report to authorities".
The militants attacked the university at dawn, and lined up non-Muslim students for execution in what Kenyatta described as a "barbaric medieval slaughter".
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.
"The terrible events in Garissa are still fresh in our minds and heart, but today is a day for new hope," Kenyan Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukala told a packed cathedral in Nairobi, as armed soldiers patrolled outside.
"These terrorists want to cause scare and divisions in our society, but we shall tell them, you will never prevail," he said.
Top Muslim leader Hassan Ole Naado also offered his condolences.
"Kenya is at war, and we must all stand together," Naado said, deputy head of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, saying the organisation was helping to raise money for the funerals of those killed and medical costs of the scores wounded.

AFP