Mandera victims were tortured before being killed, survivor says
AL Shabaab attackers tortured the victims of the Mandera massacre before killing them on Saturday morning, a survivor has said.
Nutritionist Douglas Ondari yesterday said: “I can only return to Mandera if Jesus Christ comes for a second time.”
He said on Saturday 30 terrorists got onto the bus and barked orders in English and Kiswahili.
Ondari, 27, said before the attackers started shooting, they stole his Sh42,000 and his wife’s handbag.
“We all hoped that the attackers would leave us after they stole our items only to hear them order the driver to head to Somalia.”
The attackers chose some men they considered energetic and told them to push the bus, but because it was so muddy and the bus could not move, they ordered them back to the bus, Ondari said.
“From there they singled out non-Muslims referring to us as crusaders and ordered us out of the bus. They tortured us, broke our hands and legs while some of us were stripped naked,” he said.
Ondari said the attackers paraded them in a straight line before ordering them to lie face down in the mud.
“With our faces in the mud, I heard them laugh while consulting each other whether to kill us or not. Mostly they talked about the closure of Mombasa mosques. All of a sudden, they started firing at us straight in the heads,” he said at Kenyatta National Hospital.
“There was a man who I knew as a police officer who was next to me on the right side, they shot him in the head and his brain and blood splashed over me. So I was soaked in his blood and they thought they had already shot me.”
Ondari lost his wife, Millicent, who was a teacher, in the attack.
– the-star.co.ke