Kenya Student Smears Blood to Play Dead During Al-Shabaab Attack

Paramedics help a student during the attack. At least 147 people were killed and 79 injured as at least four gunmen stormed the campus, about 330 kilometers (204 miles) northeast of the capital, Nairobi. Photographer: Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images

When al-Shabaab gunmen went on a killing spree at Garissa University in eastern Kenya, Hellen Titus played dead by smearing other students’ blood on her face.
“As soon as I heard shooting, I knew it was al-Shabaab,” the 21-year-old bachelor of education student said as she recovered from a gunshot wound to her right wrist at Garissa Hospital. “They killed Christians praying in the morning. They separated the women from the men and told us the Koran forbids them to kill women. But they tricked us and started killing the women.”

At least 147 people were killed and 79 injured as at least four gunmen stormed the campus, about 330 kilometers (204 miles) northeast of the capital, Nairobi, before dawn on Thursday and continued their assault until after nightfall, the Interior Ministry said. It was Kenya’s worst attack since al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998, killing more than 200.


Garissa remained under a heavy police and military presence as health organizations including Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Committee of the Red Cross worked to help the injured. Relatives searched for loved ones.

Quinter Anyango, a 22-year-old education major, was studying as the attack broke out.

“I ran and ran and hid in bush with my head down until 5 p.m. when a Kenyan soldier rescued me,” she said at Garissa Hospital.

At the university on Friday, ambulances continued to remove bodies of victims killed. Titus said the gunmen spoke the local Swahili language and demanded Kenya withdraw troops from Somalia, where they have been participating in an African Union force against al-Shabaab.

The militant group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2006 in a bid to impose Islamic law. Kenya has faced bombings of bars, churches, and markets for sending troops to Somalia.

“I’ve lost friends,” Titus said as she sipped sweet tea in the hospital. “I don’t know where my roommate is.”