Christians shot on the spot at Kenyan university

by Joni B. Hannigan, Editorial Staff | Apr 3, 2015

A Kenya Defense Force soldier stops a boy from moving in the direction where attackers are holding up at a campus in Garissa April 2, 2015. At least 147 were killed on Thursday when Islamist militant group al Shabaab stormed the Kenyan university campus, taking Christians hostage and engaging security forces in a shootout for several hours. | REUTERS/Noor Khamis

GARISSA, Kenya (Christian Examiner) – Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Al-Shabaab attacked a Christian university in Kenya Thursday, leaving 147 dead, dozens injured, and hundreds of students unaccounted for.

A boy injured during an attack by the Islamist group al Shabaab at Maka Al-Mukarama hotel recuperates at a hospital in Mogadishu, March 28, 2015. A hotel siege by al Shabaab militants in the Somali capital has ended and the final death toll from the attack stands at 14, a senior government official said. | REUTERS/Ismail Taxta

Al-Shabaab is a radical Islamist group from Somalia that has been blamed for terror attacks in Kenya's northern and eastern regions.

Fox News reported four attackers were killed during a siege at Garissa University where Kenyan security forces cornered the gunmen in a school dormitory.

President Uhuru Kenyatta told the nation the attackers took hostages. A source reportedly told Fox News most of the students at the school are non-Muslim.

KENYA-SECURITY COLLEGE - Map of Kenya locating the city of Garissa, where Islamist militants stormed a university campus on Thursday, killing at least a dozen people. | RNGS Reuters

"There are many dead bodies of Christians inside the building," Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told Sky News. "We are also holding many Christians alive."

Collins Wetangula, the vice chairman of the student union, said the gunmen opened doors at the dormitory asking the people who had hidden inside if they were Muslims or Christians.

"If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot," he said. "With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die."

Last month, Al-Shabaab was blamed for a large scale attack in Mandera, Kenya, when militants hijacked a bus, singled out 28 non-Muslims and forced them to lie on the ground and shot them dead. Days later, they also killed 36 quarry worker were were non-Muslims.

Police records show Al-Shabaab militants killed 312 people during attacks in Kenya from 2012 to 2014. In Garissa 38 people were killed and 149 wounded in the same period.

Kenyatta said he is directing the police chief to rush the training of 10,000 police recruits.

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