Kenya attack: Three days of mourning for massacre victims begins as churches ... - ABC Online

By Africa correspondent Martin Cuddihy, wires

Updated April 05, 2015 19:33:54

Kenyans have woken up on Easter Sunday to begin three days of national mourning for the 148 people killed by Islamist militants on Thursday.

Across the country, priests and ministers are condemning the persecution of members of their faith, and praying for those who lost their lives, on the most holy festival on the Christian calendar.

Kenya's Muslim leaders have also blasted the attack at Garissa University College, and many Muslims joined demonstrators in Garissa protesting the attack.

Islamist militants had lined up non-Muslim students during the massacre, taunting them and then executing them in Al Shabaab's bloodiest attack to date.

President Uhuru Kenyatta warned they would face justice for the "mindless slaughter" and vowed to retaliate in the "severest way" to the killings.

On Saturday, survivors of the massacre were reunited with their families in the capital Nairobi, and there were emotional scenes as many students were overcome with relief and shock.

Kenyan authorities — keen to show that they are making progress with the investigation, after fielding criticisms of intelligence failings and a slow response to the siege — have arrested five people in connection with the attack.

Armed guards shield Kenyan churches

As Christian Kenyans continue to observe Easter Sunday, churches are turning to armed guards to protect their congregations.

Christians make up 83 per cent of Kenya's population of 44 million.

Kenyan priests, who have been targeted by Islamists in the past, said they feared Christian churches may bear the brunt of possible fresh attacks on Easter Sunday.

"We are very concerned about the security of our churches and worshippers, especially this Easter period, and also because it is clear that these attackers are targeting Christians," Willybard Lagho, a Mombasa-based catholic priest and chairman of the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics (CICC), said.

He said Christian churches in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa would be hiring armed policemen and private security guards for mass on Easter Sunday.

In Garissa, six armed soldiers were shielding the town's main Christian church and about 100 worshippers ahead of Sunday mass.

Police said they were providing extra security at shopping malls and public buildings in the capital Nairobi and in the eastern coastal region.

Kenya has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in four crime-ridden counties along its porous 700km border with Somalia, while helicopters were deployed along its coastal region popular with Western tourists.

Robert Kitur, the coastal region police chief, said extra uniformed and plain-clothes police officers had been deployed in the area, where Islamists have carried out attacks in the past.

"It is a delicate period but we have put the best possible surveillance," he said.

"What happened in Garissa must never be seen in Mombasa or anywhere else in the region and country."

ABC/wires

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, terrorism, christianity, murder-and-manslaughter, islam, kenya

First posted April 05, 2015 18:52:15