Garissa: AMREF on effects of al-Shabab massacre

(Vatican Radio) Thursday’s attack on Garissa University in Kenya by four gunmen of the terrorist organization al-Shabab killed one hundred and forty-eight people, the majority of whom were students.

Five suspects have been arrested today in connection with the attack as they attempted to flee into neighbouring Somalia. 

We spoke to the Interim President for AMREF Health Africa, Dr. Lennie Bazira Igbodipe-Kyomuhangi.

AMREF is an African NGO committed to improving the health of people in Africa by partnering with and empowering communities, and strengthening health systems.

The organization boasts more than 700 staff members in Kenya and their helicopters assisted in the evacuation of the injured following the university attack.

When asked about how the attack has affected the surviving students, she had this to say:

'From what we are seeing, most of them are very traumatized. Some of them had to smear blood of their dead colleagues to pretend to be dead in order to survive.'

'Even though AMREF is not an emergency organization, we do operate air ambulance operations so we were able to evacuate seventeen of the critically injured using our planes.'

AMREF remains dedicated to the people of Kenya despite the heightened threat.

'We will not close our operations in Garissa, we will just tighten the security around our staff.'

Listen to the report by Devin Watkins: