Kenyans on Saturday marked the first anniversary of the Garissa University attack, when four extremist gunmen massacred 148 people, with renewed criticism of the government's handling of crisis.
Hundreds gathered at the site of the
attack in eastern Kenya to remember the incident, one of the country's
worst-ever terrorist attacks carried out by four gunmen from the
al-Qaida-allied Somali al-Shabab group.
The gunmen were finally killed by a
police commando unit after 12 hours and the government has been heavily
criticized for its slow response to the attack, despite there being a military
base nearby.
Kenya has suffered a wave of extremist
attack since it deployed troops in October 2011 to Somalia to support the weak
government there in its battle against the al-Shabab militants.
The university re-opened in January
after extensive refurbishment of the bullet-scarred buildings but only 150 of
its 700 students have returned to class. Others were transferred to Moi
University in western Kenya.
Aden Duale, the leader of the
parliamentary majority, said at the event that Kenyan troops will remain in
Somalia until their mission of pacifying the country is fulfilled.
Other speakers, however, reserved their ire for the government, saying that
the families of the victims should receive compensation.
"It is time that the government
compensates the students who died in the attack. That is the duty of the
government," said Garissa County women's representative, Shukran Gure.
Paul Wekesa, 24, a second year education
student who witnessed the attack, agreed that the government should offer some
kind of compensation to families of the students who died and scholarships for
those survived.
He said he only survived because he had
been up early to study and so was awake when the attack began. Together with
another group of students he went to investigate the sounds of shots and ran
into a gunman who opened fire on them.
One student was killed outright and the rest fled under a hail of
bullets, scaling a barbed wire fence under fire.
"I am here to bury my past and heal myself," said Wekesa, who said
the two weeks of counseling provided by the government has been inadequate.
"I am here to show respect to my three close friends Agnes, Edward and
Cherop — I managed to escape but they didn't."
According to political commentator
Patrick Gathara, for the public there remain many unanswered questions about
the government's performance such as the delayed response, the inability to
stop the attack despite intelligence warnings and the fact that no one has been
prosecuted for the security failures.
"Kenya is a country on the edge. People don't believe they are
fundamentally safer despite what the government is saying," he said.
"There is no evidence the government has learned from its failings."
A year since the attacks, Kenyan
universities are prone to panic with four stampedes taking place in different
institutions after students thought they heard gunshots or explosions. Hundreds
have been injured and two dead. [AP]
No comments:
Post a Comment