Kenya: ‘39 unaccounted for’ - Kenyan Red Cross head

Two men in Nairobi study a newspaper page pasted to a wall that shows the victims of last week's fourday terrorist attack on the shopping centre. Picture: Reuters

The report, which conflicts with government statements that there are no people still missing, suggests the death toll could rise further as investigators dig through the rubble of the partially collapsed mall.

“The numbers with us are what we are still showing as open cases that are reported to us,” local Red Cross chief Abbas Gullet said yesterday.

“The only way to verify this is when the government declares the Westgate Mall 100 per cent cleared – then we can resolve it.”

At least 61 civilians and six members of the security services were killed in the attack.

However, government reports on the number of terrorists killed have been confusing and at times contradictory.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said last week that five attackers had been killed by security forces’ gunfire and his office said one or more might be trapped under the building’s rubble.

In a TV interview on Sunday, however, interior minister Joseph Ole Lenku said two attackers had been hit by gunfire and the building was thought to have collapsed on three others. Later in the interview, he said all five Islamic extremists were thought to be under the rubble, and that no bodies of any terrorist suspects had been recovered.

“We are sure they never got out of the building, so let the forensic examination establish the exact truth,” Mr Lenku said.

When pressed about the government’s initial estimate that ten to 15 terrorists could have been involved, he conceded the figure may have been wrong, or some could have escaped.

Meanwhile, shop owners said soldiers sent in to end the siege had looted electronics, jewellery and cash registers.

The government said it took such allegations seriously but that it had acted to protect stock in the centre, where prosperous Kenyans and foreigners who frequented the complex could buy iPads, Swiss watches and jewel-encrusted necklaces.

Store owners and many Kenyans are angry that goods appeared to have been stolen, even after troops tasked with hunting the armed gunmen had locked down the building.

“The whole place has been done over,” Tariq Harunani, an optician, said after being allowed into the mall late on Sunday.

“The watch counters have been cleared, the jewellery shop is empty, there’s no jewellery on the necklace stands,” he said.

His brother Yasser said: “We know who’s done it, but what can we do? They ransacked it. The military secured the place and in that time the place is emptied. This is Kenya. Let’s just face it, what’s lost is lost.”

Another trader, who declined to give his name, told reporters: “All the shop fronts have been shot up. We’ve lost laptops and cash.”

Shopkeepers say they cannot blame members of the public who fled in terror on the day of the attack on 21 September or who trickled out from hiding places on subsequent days for the emptied shelves.

The raid has shocked the nation and the world for the brazen way the attackers stormed in spraying people with bullets and throwing grenades, confirming fears in the region and the West that Somalia remains a training ground for militant Islam.

Parliamentarians, visiting the mall area yesterday, said they would determine whether security chiefs had failed to act on intelligence of an impending attack. They are expected to question top officers and others this week.

• Kenya: Troops, not terrorists, caused blasts