Kenya: 147 students murdered before gunmen kill themselves (UPDATED)

Masked gunmen from Somalia's Shebab Islamist group massacred at least 147 Kenyan students Thursday in a day-long college campus siege, ending only when all four gunmen blew themselves up. Today, survivors are telling frightening stories of their ordeal.

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Afternoon update

Frightening stories are being heard from survivors. Here is a short report from AP

Survivors recounted how the gunmen from Somalia's Shebab fighters taunted students before killing them, including forcing them to call their parents to urge them to call for Kenyan troops to leave Somalia – before then still shooting them.

As the gunmen prowled the university rooms hunting down more people to kill, some students smeared blood from their dead friends over their bodies to pretend they too had been shot.

Hundreds of students – many of whom escaped in little more than what they were sleeping in – spent Thursday night at nearby military barracks, where they were fed and given clothes.

Maureen Manyengo, a 21-year-old education student from western Kenya, said she hid inside her wardrobe after seeing several friends killed.

"I could hear the attackers telling my friends, 'Do not worry, we will kill you but we will die too'" she recalled.

"I could also hear them, saying "You will only be safe the day your president removes the soldiers from Somalia.'"

Somali Islamists kill 147 in Kenya university massacre

Garissa, Kenya, AFP – Masked gunmen from Somalia's Shebab Islamist group massacred at least 147 Kenyan students Thursday in a day-long college campus siege, the country's deadliest attack since the 1998 US embassy bombings.

All four of the gunmen wore suicide vests packed with explosives, detonating themselves in huge blasts as the dramatic assault finally ended after some 16 hours.

Hurling grenades and firing automatic rifles, the gunmen had stormed the university in the northeastern town of Garissa at dawn as students were sleeping, shooting dead dozens before setting Muslims free and holding Christians and others hostage.

The government said at least 79 people were wounded in the assault near the lawless border with war-torn Somalia, several seriously, and there are fears the death toll may still rise.

In the final hour before darkness fell, Kenyan troops stormed a student dormitory where the gunmen were holed up as blasts and fierce gunfire rang out.

Interior Minister Joseph Nkaiserry said the four died detonating their suicide vests as soldiers burst in shooting, with Western security sources reporting that several soldiers and hostages may have died in the final blasts.

Troops then continued to search the campus for any possible insurgents until the siege was declared over late on Thursday, with the national disaster operations centre saying it had "ended with all four terrorists killed."

The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab fighters, the same insurgents who carried out the Westgate shopping mall massacre in Nairobi in September 2013, when four gunmen killed at least 67 people in a four-day siege.

Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told AFP the gunmen had taken non-Muslims hostage, and that their mission had been "to kill those who are against the Shebab."

"Kenya is at war with Somalia," Rage said, referring to the thousands of Kenyan troops in Somalia as part of an African Union military mission.

The garrison town is around 150 kilometres west of Somalia and has been targeted in the past by militants from the Shebab.

Police chief Joseph Boinet said "the gunmen shot indiscriminately" after storming the compound.

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