Westgate Heroes We Will Live to Remember 5 Years After the Terror Attack

21st September 2013 was not just another day for Kenya, terror struck and cost us 71 lives including those of four attackers and 6 security officers with 175 people seriously injured and the rest of the country horribly terrified.

It was a Sunday and being a Kenyan culture, a day for parents to spend time with their children, a special day in the week for families to get together. There were a large number of children during the attack at the mall, therefore, with a cooking event for children ongoing at the rooftop organized by a team including the then media personality, who died during the terror attack, Ruhila Adatia-sood. Ruhila was six months pregnant during the attack.

President Kenyatta’s address to the nation depicted a helpless man at the time after he too lost his nephew Mbugua Mwangi and his fiancée Rosemary Wahito with crucial information getting miscommunicated further causing panic.

“I ask God to give you comfort as you confront this tragedy, and I know what you feel having also lost very close family members in this deadly attack.”

Five years past and time seem to have done very little to heal the Westgate mall wounds yet lessons seem to have faded. Kenya increased security officers at checkpoints of malls, institutions amongst other public places but the level of ignorance depicted by a majority of these security guards show lack of effective training and lack of morale.

Westgate attack revealed the Kenyans togetherness that always emerges when Kenya is under attack whether verbal or physical. Despite the pain never going away, there were the heroes that emerged during the terror incident and very little is heard of them.

They daringly walked into the mall despite the deafening gunfire and the smell of fresh human blood to do what they knew best, save a life and end the terror. There were those that paid the ultimate price and lost their lives, taking bullet after bullet to enable the success of the mission, may they rest in eternal peace.

On days like today when Kenyans are embittered by the Government following President Uhuru’s signing the Finance bill, that will see Kenyans exorbitantly taxed, it is the actions of such Kenyans that remind us of how privileged we are to share a motherland with these heroes and heroines. Below is a look at some of them:

Abdul Haji

Abdul Haji was in a meeting when he got a message from his brother informing him that Westgate was under attack and he was trapped inside.

Haji told the BBC that his brother’s message looked like a goodbye which prompted him to make his way to Westgate and leave the meeting.

Haji’s brother and father, former Defence Minister in Kenya, had apparently received death threats and Haji hence thought his family had been targeted.

Once at the Westgate Mall, Haji assisted the Red Cross team by covering them to rescue an injured victim

After rushing to the Westgate, he helped give cover to Red Cross rescuers as they tried to reach injured survivors in a vehicle. The men then made their way to an upstairs parking area where they saw “a lot of dead people”.

Mr. Haji was among five who included three plain-clothed cops as they entered the top floor of the mall checking from shop to shop.

“We saw some people lying on the floor. We started shouting ‘we’re police, get out, get out’, and we started doing this at every store,” said Haji.

Haji was in the mall for more than three hours, assisting people to escape with his brother also fleeing the premises.

Nura Ali

Nura Ali, a Flying Squad officer, was out for lunch in Buru Buru when the call came in. Together with three officers, they dropped their lunch and headed straight to Westgate.

They arrived at the mall and armed with a pistol and an AK47, Ali engaged the terrorists till he shot one of them.

Nura was also shot at the stomach, leg, and back but survived and is now happy with his wife and seven children five years later.

Ex-Royal Marine

An ex-royal marine has on numerous occasions been named for his daring determination in evacuating people from the mall. British newspapers have applauded him but due to security reasons, his face has never been revealed.

It is, however, the act of him putting his life on the line to ensure the safety of the terrified people stuck at the mall that must never go unmentioned.

Satpal Singh

Satpal was at the then terror struck mall for a business meeting which was close to a children’s cooking competition- where Ruhila Adatia was- in mall’s car park.

Gunshots and explosions began to fill the environment causing Mr. Singh to run downstairs to check what he could do to assist.

Singh assisted by ushering people into the mall’s cinema hall and informing a guard to shut down the shutters.

He requested the cinema staff to show them directions to the fire exit which led back to the roof terrace.

He barricaded the door and made his way back down to the basement with the rest of the group and “started pushing people out through the gate onto the streets very fast”.

“Once we got everybody out, the policeman who was with us went towards the basement to see if there was anybody there or any terrorists, and he got shot in the leg and he dropped his gun so we had to bring him back out,” Singh narrated to the BBC adding that blood that was .

“We found people with gunshot wounds that are why blood is on my shoes. We carried them on our shoulders down the fire escape,” said Singh during the BBC interview.