What Really Happened at Westgate
Nairobi
Thick smoke hangs above the access road to The Westgate – the up-market shopping mall that serves mainly expats, UN staff and Kenyan elites.
Sporadic gunfire and explosions are clearly heard from the direction of the compound; overtaken on Saturday 21 September, by Somali fighters from the Muslim militant group Al-Shabaab.
Police forces and military duck for cover, and new troops are being bussed in order to take part in the operation.
Combat helicopters are circling around the site. Even higher than them, almost above the clouds, one can spot small airplanes. The sky is very busy. And it is overcast; the weather is gloomy and when the clouds are high up, aircraft are hardly visible.
Dozens of reporters, local and international, are shouting their dispatches into mobile phones. Some are Tweeting, or recording interviews with rescued hostages, nurses, and security officers.
Everything appears to be surprisingly well organized, including the supply of food, water and medicine. A Chinese clinic is offering help, as well as several voluntary organizations. People are donating blood. There are blankets and tents readily available.
But the gunfire keeps raging.
There are all sorts of speculations: the leader, the commander, is the ‘White Widow’, an English lady who was married to one of the Muslim attackers of the London Underground. Other ‘unconfirmed reports’ speaks about American jihadi fighters. And then, there is of course that semi-confirmed information about Israeli commandos, about US involvement and UK participation.
Who is inside that most luxurious shopping complex in East Africa? They say, there are no more than 10 attackers holed up inside, mainly Somalis, but there also others, some coming from outside the African continent. The rumors and official reports first speak about a few dozen hostages, then about 200. The number keeps swelling.
The armed forces and reporters are interacting.
“6 soldiers died”, one army officer whispers into my ear. “They do not admit it, but I know, I was just there”.
At one point I spot my Indian-Malaysian dentist, next to her son, also a dentist, who is said to have saved several people in the course of the first day. She is visibly shaken and her eyes are red, from lack of sleep, or maybe from tears.
It is all very emotional, very raw. Days and nights are blending together.
Al-Shabaab is Tweeting. It tells the world that the pain inflicted during those days is just a tiny fraction of what Kenya is inflicting on Somalia. Twitter is quickly shutting down all the sites of Al-Shabbab, but new sites are being instantly created.
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