‘Gunmen had scouted the campus’

Al-Shabaab gunmen have rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya killing 147 people.

Evacuation ... victim of Thursday's university attack is assisted to a plane by medical staff prior to being flown to Nairobi. Picture: AP Source: AP

THE Islamic extremists who slaughtered 147 people at a college in Kenya as they shouted 'God is great' appeared to have planned extensively, even targeting a site where Christians had gone to pray, survivors said on Friday.

Police on Friday were at the campus of Garissa University College, taking fingerprints from the bodies of the four assailants and of the students and security officials who died, for thorough identification purposes.

The north-eastern Kenyan town lacks the facilities to store all the bodies.

Survivors ... students evacuated from Moi University during a terrorist siege gather in Garissa before being transported to their home regions. Picture: AFP/ Carl de Souza Source: AFP

In Nairobi, Kenya's capital, family members were lining up at a morgue where about 20 bodies had already been flown from Garissa, victims of the worst attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy by al-Qaeda which killed more than 200 people. Screaming and crying relatives of the victims were assisted by Kenyan Red Cross staffers, who tried to console them.

Casualty ... paramedics attend to an injured Kenyan student as she is wheeled into Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

Rescue ... a member of the security forces escorts a student out of a Kenyan University campus in Garissa. Picture: AFP /Carl de Souza Source: AFP

Christians in prayer targeted

One of the first things that the al-Shabab gunmen did when they assaulted the campus early Thursday, survivor Helen Titus said, was to head for a lecture hall where Christians were in early morning prayer. Al-Shabab is a Somalia-based extremist group with ties to al-Qaeda.

"They investigated our area. They knew everything," Helen Titus told The Associated Press at a hospital in Garissa where she was being treated for a bullet wound to the wrist. Officials said 79 people were wounded.

Titus, a 21-year-old English literature student, said she covered her face and hair with the blood of classmates and lay still at one point during al-Shabab's deadliest attack on Kenyan soil in hopes the Islamic extremist gunmen would think she was dead.

Surprise attack ... paramedics attend an injured student as he arrives at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

The gunmen also told students hiding in dormitories to come out, assuring them that they would not be killed, said Ms Titus, who wore a patient's gown as she sat on a bench in the hospital yard.

"We just wondered whether to come out or not," she said. Many students did, whereupon the gunmen started shooting men, saying they would not kill "ladies," Ms Titus said. But they also shot women and targeted Christians, said Ms Titus, who is a Christian.

Esther Wanjiru said she was awake at the time of the attack. Asked if she lost anyone, she said: "My best friend."

Unbearable loss ... Kenya Red Cross staff assist a woman after she viewed the body of a relative at Chiromo funeral home in Nairobi, Kenya. Picture: AP Source: AP

Another survivor, Nina Kozel, said she was woken up by screaming and that many students escaped by sprinting to the fences and jumping over them. Some suffered bruises, she said. Many men were unable to escape, and hid in vain under beds and in closets in their rooms, according to Ms Kozel.

"They were shot there and then," she said.

Those who surrendered were either selected for killing, or freed in some cases, apparently because they were Muslim, she said.

The killers shouted "God is great" in Arabic as they proceeded with the slaughter, she said.

Suffering ... a mother grieves after discovering her son was among those killed, as she leaves a centre set up for relatives and survivors in Garissa. Picture: AP/Ben Curtis Source: AP

Assessing the aftermath

Security forces stood guard Friday at the gate of the school. School slogans on the wall outside said "Oasis of Innovation" and "A World Class University of Technological Processes and Development."

At one point, a group approached the college gate and was blocked by soldiers. Several women began shrieking and collapsed in apparent grief in the dust for several minutes. A bystander said the son of one of the women had died in the attack.

A small group of male demonstrators walked down a main road in Garissa with signs that read "We are against the killing of innocent Kenyans!!!! We are tired!!" and "Enough is enough. No more killing!! We are with you, our fellow Kenyans."

Solidarity ... a small group of male demonstrators walked down a main road in Garissa. Picture: AP/Ben Curtis Source: AP

"We feel very sorry for them and we condemn the attack," demonstrator Abdullahi Muktar said of the victims.

Some surviving students awaited evacuation to Nairobi by plane from a nearby airstrip.

The masked attackers — strapped with explosives and armed with AK-47s — singled out non-Muslim students and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. The gunmen took dozens of hostages in a dormitory as they battled troops and police before the operation ended after about 13 hours, witnesses said.

Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said fighters the group was responsible for the attack.

Next of kin ... Al-Shabab gunmen rampaged through a university in north-eastern Kenya at dawn on Thursday, killing scores of people. Picture: AP Source: AP

The al-Qaeda-linked group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Kenya, including the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people, as well as other violence in the north. The group has vowed to retaliate against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants staging cross-border attacks and kidnappings.

Somali President Said Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called for stronger collaboration between Somalia and Kenya to defeat al-Shabab.

Pope condemns 'senseless brutality'

Pope Francis on Friday condemned the massacre of 147 students in Kenya that saw Christians targeted as an act of "senseless brutality" and said he would pray for the perpetrators to change.

The pontiff's feelings were expressed in a telegram send by his Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to Cardinal John Njue, the President of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, on Good Friday, the holiest day of the year in the Christian calendar.

Attack ... a student injured on Moi university by Shebab fighters is treated at a hospital in Garissa. Picture: AFP /Carl de Souza Source: AFP

"Deeply saddened by the immense and tragic loss of life caused by the recent attack on the Garissa University College, the Holy Father sends assurances of his prayers and spiritual closeness to the families of the victims and to all Kenyans at this painful time," the telegram read.

"In union with all people of good will throughout the world, His Holiness condemns this act of senseless brutality and prays for a change of heart among its perpetrators."

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