Attachments
A. Situation analysis Description of the disaster
In the morning hours of Thursday 2 April 2015 at around 05:30am, the Garissa University College was attacked by an armed group. Garissa University is located in Garissa town in the North Eastern part of Kenya. This attack was preceded by an explosion at the University entrance before the attackers moved into nearby hostels where they took the occupants hostage. The Kenya security personnel responded to the incident. Most of the students had not woken up at that hour. By the end of the day, according to the Government sources, there were 147 casualties of which 6 were critical. Majority of the casualties had gunshot wounds and some got cuts while trying to escape. Most of the casualties are students from the institution with few security personnel. Out of the 749 students admitted in the University, 359 have been accounted for and 390 have not.
According to Media, Al Shaabab group have taken responsibility for the attack.
The town of Garissa is around 150 kilometres (90 miles) west of Somalia and has in the past been targeted by militants from the Al-Shabaab. Kenya has in the recent past experienced repeated attacks in several locations in the country. In November 2014, a bus travelling from Mandera Town, North East Kenya to Nairobi was attacked at Ledhi, in the Arabia area, 30km from Mandera Town, which led to the death of 28 people as a result of gunshots. The deceased were professionals working as civil servants in Mandera travelling for holidays in their rural homes in other counties in Kenya. The Al Shabaab group claimed responsibility for the attack, as retaliation to the closure of mosques in Mombasa. Following the Mandera bus attack, non-locals were relocated back to Nairobi following the fear that they would be attacked and together with the survivors, family members of the deceased and the remaining population remained traumatized. In September 2013, the Westgate shopping mall was attacked, the most severe in Kenya in the recent past.