Indians For Guns

Kenya mall attack: family saved by civilian 'hero' tell their story

The family who were saved from the Westgate terrorist attack by a heroic Kenyan man have spoken out about their terrifying ordeal.

Speaking to the Telegraph, the Walton family – who hail from the United States - said they had only visited the mall in Nairobi as a quick excursion, but four hours later were pinned to the ground as gunmen as bullets and grenades flew around them."We were just going to meet my two older boys in the supermarket when we heard an explosion," Katherine Walton said.

The mother of three girls and two boys added: “A woman pulled us behind a promotional table opposite. I could see the bullets hitting above the shops and hear the screaming all around us."

One of the most iconic images from the attack (above) shows Katherine and husband Paul’s four-year-old daughter Portia being saved by a man with a gun. He has now been identified as Abdul Haji – a Muslim man who had arrived at the mall after getting a text from his brother, who was trapped inside.

He ended up using the gun skills his father – a former Kenyan security minister – taught him when he was growing up to provide fire cover for Red Cross workers as they helped rescue some of the 1,000 civilians who managed to escape.

While the family sheltered nearby along with an injured Kenyan woman and two Indian women, Haji was apparently locked in a gun battle with a militant who taunted him to come nearer.

After that battle, he called the group over in an attempt to help them escape. They indicated that, with the children among them, they could not all run together.

In the scene that was captured on camera by Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic, young Portia then emerged and ran across toward Mr Haji.

"This little girl is a very brave girl," Mr Haji said of the child. "Amid all this chaos around her, she remained calm, she wasn't crying and she actually managed to run towards men who were holding guns. I was really touched by this and I thought if such a girl can be so brave ... it gave us all courage."

"I don't know how she knew to do it but she did. She did what she was told and she went," Mrs Walton added.
Many have described Haji as a hero, but he has brushed off the tag, telling the Kenyan television station NTV: “I did what any Kenyan in my situation would have done to save lives, to save other humans regardless of their nationality, religion or creed."

The Westgate siege was the largest terrorist attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy, and FBI agents have since been dispatched there to do fingerprint, DNA and ballistic analysis on the bodies of those who were killed. They were joined by investigators from Britain, Germany and Canada.

No details have been released about what the international team has found so far in the bullet-scarred, scorched mall. The work is expected to take at least a week, said Kenyan police spokeswoman Gatiria Mboroki.

The Kenyan Red Cross said 61 people remained missing and many worry they may be buried under the rubble of the partially collapsed building - though the government has insisted few victims are believed to be inside still.

The government says at least 67 people were killed in the assault by 12 to 15 al-Shabaab militants on the Westgate Mall, including 61 civilians and six security forces. Five militants also were killed, but questions remained about the fate of the remaining attackers and fears persisted that some had managed to escape.

Many also questioned how such an audacious attack could have been carried out at one of Kenya's most prominent sites and a symbol of its economic success, where shops for retail giants like Adidas, Nike and Bose drew foreigners as well as wealthy Kenyans.

In what appeared to be the first round of political blame-shifting, officials from the National Intelligence Service gave journalists a report from 21 September 2012 - exactly one year before Saturday's attack - that said suspected al-Shabaab operatives were in Nairobi and planned to mount suicide attacks on an "undisclosed date, targeting Westgate Mall".