148 people killed in Thursday's al-Shabab attack on Garissa university campus, amid questions over why warnings were ignored.
Kenyan newspapers say there was intelligence information of an imminent attack on a school or university.
Locals question why security was not heightened, with only two guards on duty at the time of the attack.
Four more people have been found alive on the campus, but two are suspects and have been arrested, sources say.
One is said to be a Tanzanian national with no known links to the university.
All the bodies have been removed from the scene, Kenya's interior minister Joseph Nkaiserry said. Most of the victims were students, but three police officers and three soldiers were also killed, he added.
Police in neighbouring Uganda say they have received information suggesting a similar attack is being planned there.
Attack warning
Security services appear to have had some information that an attack on an institution of higher learning was in the offing and appear to have warned institutions to be careful, the Daily Nation newspaper reports.
It says the University of Nairobi warned its students on 25 March that it had received intelligence information about a possible attack on a university and asked them to be vigilant.
Kenyan forces prepared to sweep inside the campus hours after the attack
A dusk to dawn curfew has now been imposed in Garissa and three nearby counties.
In his address to the nation after the attack, President Uhuru Kenyatta said he had instructed the police chief to speed up the training of 10,000 recruits, because Kenya had "suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel".
Al-Shabab was also blamed for the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi in 2013 in which 67 people died.
President Barack Obama has expressed his condolences, saying "words cannot adequately condemn" what had happened.
Long queues are forming at the mortuaries to identify the victims
The UN too expressed its outrage, paying tribute to Kenya's role in the African Union's mission in neighbouring Somalia against al-Shabab.
The bodies of those killed in Garissa have been flown to the capital Nairobi for identification, as the local mortuaries have been unable to cope, and many of the students killed came from other parts of the country.
Christians targeted
The masked attackers killed two security guards at dawn on Thursday, then rampaged through campus, shooting and shouting "we are al-Shabab".
They singled out Christians and shot them, witnesses said.
At the scene: Wanyama wa Chebusiri, BBC Africa, Garissa:
A second-year student who hid for 10 hours in a wardrobe is one of about 500 survivors still being held at a military facility, where they are undergoing counselling.
Her father drove for four hours from Nairobi when he was unable to get hold of her during the siege.
He told the BBC about his desperate search for his daughter at the mortuary, hospital and military airstrip.
Late in the afternoon, when he had almost given up hope, he got a text: "Dad call me". They have yet to be reunited but his relief is palpable.
While many of the survivors spoke to the media, little is known so far about those who were killed.
The BBC's Frenny Jowi says Kenyan media are cautious in their coverage because of a new anti-terror law that stipulates heavy fines for material "likely to cause fear".
Garissa university campus
1. Militants enter the university grounds, two guards are shot dead
2. Shooting begins within the campus
3. Students attacked in their classrooms while preparing for exams
4. Gunmen believed isolated in the female dormitories
5. Some students make an escape through the fence
The gunmen were eventually cornered in a dormitory by Kenyan security forces. Four of them died when their suicide vests detonated. A fifth gunman was reportedly arrested.
Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, said it carried out the attack. The group says it is at war with Kenya, which sent troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants.
The Kenyan government has offered a reward of $53,000 (£36,000) for the man it says planned the killing - Mohamed Kuno, a former Kenyan schoolteacher, now thought to be in Somalia.
No comments:
Post a Comment