SAM’S SENSE: Garissa attack - Ten years on

Ten years ago this week, four terrorists attacked Garissa University college, the first ever university in the North Eastern region, killing 148 among them 142 students. I was there on the 2nd of April 2015 when terror reigned on over 600 students who had left their homes to the oasis of innovation as the motto of the university was and still is.

On that night, the late General Joseph Nkaissery, the then Interior Cabinet Secretary had been making press updates. The number of those killed had been rising from a few, to dozens, to 70 and eventually 147 as the final figure pronounced by General Nkaissery.

In the days that followed, I witnessed the effects of terror among comrades who were being hosted at a nearby airstrip. I saw a young man who suffered from horrific hallucinations, crying and running away as he called the name of his friend who apparently had been killed in the attack. And we told many stories of those that we lost, their families and their cry for answers and compensation.

And I remember speaking to the university leadership including Vice Chancellor, Professor Ahmed Osman Warfa who told how information had been circulating on the 1st of April 2015 of an imminent attack. But it was thought to be an April fools’ prank.

Professor Warfa agonized that he had made reports of terror threats and asked for security support, which was never given. He wondered how four armed police officers who had been manning the university gate staged no resistance when the terrorists arrived.

This was a poorly handled attack. The worst on the Kenyan soil and by many standards, perhaps, the worst school mass shooting incident anywhere in the world.

And I stayed in Garissa for a few days, witnessed the emptiness in the citizens there. One morning, NYS buses came to the Garissa stadium to pick terrified students and take them home. They were taken to the Nyayo National stadium in Nairobi and arrived to a rainy night. The stadium was a pool of tears, as families of the students reunited, happy to have their sons and daughters alive, but horrified to the core of the circumstances.

In the days following, families organized funerals for their loved ones. 142 students in number, real people, who until their tragic demise had been the beacons of hope in their families, spread across the Kenyan map.

It was the saddest moment for a country that had been on an expansion plan for access to education. And parents raised questions, most answers unbecoming.

And then in July 2024, the High Court ordered that each of the victims’ families be paid Ksh.3 million, as compensation for the State’s abdication of responsibility to prevent and combat terrorism. 14 survivors were awarded varying amounts between Ksh.1.2 million and Ksh.10 million based on injuries suffered and the impact on their lives.

The court found that the state had been reckless and negligent in its actions.

Ten years ago, we lost Philomena Kasyoka, Hanna Nduta, Dianna Musambi, Thomas Nyaiburi, Dennis Ouma Onyango, Mildred Chitechi, Oliver Maina, Agnes Mwende, Branton Wakhungu, Laban Kumba and 138 others, majority of them students.

May they rest in peace.