2 April 2015

MASSACRE OF GARISSA (KENYA)

It is 5:30 a.m. on April 2, 2015 when a commando of al-Shabaab, the Islamist guerrillas of Somali origin, enters the University of Garissa to make a “punitive expedition”: it will be a massacre, with few equals in contemporary history.
Immediately a bomb throw, to annihilate the surveillance service at the entrance of the university institute: the two guards are thus killed. But it’s just the beginning.
As it rises, the far-fetched armed terrorists violate the entrance to the student dormitory. Screams of terror, gunshots and death threats are the alarm clock in the dormitories still in their sleep.
That day, Holy Thursday for the many Christians on campus, the request of the executioners of al-Shabaab is tremendous and laughable: those who know how to recite the Shahada, the profession of Islamic faith, or at least a sura of the Quran are safe. Those who do not know how to do this or profess to be a Christian, are killed with a shot fired at point-blank range. A carnage, with many bodies, then recomposed in the mobitoriums of Garissa or Nairobi, disfigured by stabs.
The manhunt continues for hours: students who have taken refuge in a closet call or text home, until around 1 p.m., before being discovered and also killed. Among the survivors are those who spoke openly to reporters about torture.
A day of blood, left stained on the floors of the university in the following days, with the intervention of the police that only in the evening manages to neutralize the commando: the 4 executioners of al-Shabaab are all killed around 9 thirty. When the police re-emit the campus, it is immediately controversial over the slowness of the repressive action. The government is indicted for neglecting the security issue at the university.
Garissa had been fully militarized, after being hit in 2013 by two deadly attacks, but that day the campus was protected by only two guards, the first to be killed.
According to investigative sources, the strategist of the operation would be a former university lecturer and the attack a retaliation against the Kenyan government, engaged in Somalia against fundamentalists.
But today, first of all, those 148 victims are asking the world to be remembered.
Alongside the university that returned to business a year later, a church and a children’s school were built. It is only the first of the fruits of the 148 martyrs of Garissa.