RwGNews: "I recognized one of the terrorists" - says survivor of the deadly Kenyan hotel attack -www.RwGOnline.com

A man who was trapped in the DusitD2 hotel Kenya when at least 5 terrorists attacked on Tuesday, January 15, has said that he recognized one of the attackers as his client.

Reuben Kimani, a barista who was rescued after several hours trapped inside the Dusit D2 hotel, told newsmen:

I knew one of them because he had a big scar on one of his hands.

I saw them. They shot six of my friends, four didn’t die but two succumbed.

John Maingi said there had been “a flash of lights and a loud bang” at the Secret Garden restaurant where he works.

He said:

When I peeped outside I saw a human leg which has been cut off. We hid in the room and then some police officers rescued us.

One survivor rescued from the building said the attackers were “very confident; they were people who knew what they were doing”.

At least one suicide bomber blew himself up during the attack on Tuesday afternoon and 4 gunmen opened fire on hotel patrons and staff. They also engaged security forces in numerous shootouts during the assault on the DusitD2 compound, which includes a 101-room hotel, spa, restaurant and office buildings.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said Wednesday that the terrorists who stormed the upmarket hotel complex, killing 14 people, had been “eliminated” after an almost 20-hour siege in which hundreds of civilians were rescued.

Al-Qaeda-linked Somali group Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group has repeatedly targeted Kenya since it sent its army into Somalia in October 2011 to fight the jihadist group.

The last major attack in the country took place in 2015, when Shabaab killed 148 people at the University in Garissa, eastern Kenya. Prior to that, in September 2013, Al-Shabaab attacked the Westgate shopping mall, an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya. At least 71 people were reported to have been killed in that attack but there are conflicting reports as it is believed more people died in the fire that started during the siege.

There have been other sporadic terrorist attacks carried out in the remote northeastern parts of the country.