Nineteen people remain unaccounted for two days after Somali militants attacked a hotel complex in Nairobi and killed at least 21 people, the Red Cross says, raising the possibility of a considerably higher death toll.
Al Shabaab, a Somalia-based al-Qaeda affiliate fighting to impose strict Islamic law, said it carried the assault on the upscale dusitD2 compound over US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Wednesday evening that a 20-hour siege had ended with security forces killing all the Somali militants who had stormed the hotel complex, driving hundreds of people into terrifying escapes.
The Red Cross had on Wednesday afternoon put the number of those unaccounted for at 50. In a statement some hours later, it said the number of people still unaccounted for had dropped to 19.
Families searching for their loved ones are urged to call our tracing line on 0715820219 #RiversideAttack
— Kenya Red Cross (@KenyaRedCross) January 17, 2019
Kenya, the East African hub for multinational companies and the United Nations, became a frequent target for al Shabaab after Kenya sent troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011 to try to create a buffer zone along its border.
The bloody bodies of five attackers were broadcast across social media as Kenyatta announced the end of the siege, which echoed a 2013 al Shabaab assault that killed 67 people in the Westgate shopping centre in the same district.
Sixteen Kenyans including a policeman, an American survivor of the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, and a British development worker were among the dead in the hotel complex, Nairobi police chief Joseph Boinnet said.