Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

How we survived terror at Nairobi’s Westgate mall

What it was like at the Westgate mall, from two of those who survived

Credit: CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images

 Nairobi

Kenya is one of those places where everybody knows everybody — and each one of us seems to have friends or relatives caught up in the Westgate shopping mall terrorist attack. My friends Simon and Amanda Belcher were on their way to lunch at the mall before catching a film at the cinema. They had parked their car on the top floor and walked past a marquee where a children’s ‘super chef’ cookery competition was about to start when gunfire erupted inside. Simon at first thought ‘firecrackers’. Then they heard shots from the ramp up to the car park. Walking towards them were two slim young men carrying AK-47s with their faces swathed in Arab scarves. The Belchers ducked down and hid under parked cars, from where they could see what was unfolding. An African nanny and a small Asian boy joined Simon under a Land Rover. Two men were under the next vehicle, where Amanda crawled. Dozens of people, mostly women and children, screamed and ran to a corner, clambering over each other and cowering. The gunmen approached them and — standing feet away from the Belchers — one announced in Somali-accented but good English: ‘Bismillah al rahman al rahim. We have come to kill you Christians and Kenyans because you have been killing our women and children in Somalia. Any Muslims can go.’ ‘I’m a Muslim!’ shouted one man with children. They were allowed to leave. Then the gunmen opened fire, using single shots and short bursts, taking their time, executing people one by one. A man and a woman tried to run past one attacker. Simon recalls, ‘He shot them. Bam! Bam! They went down. That AK has a horrific noise. You hear the thud of bullets into flesh.’ They lobbed a grenade at the cowering crowd and there were more screams.

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