The world was shocked when al-Qaida-linked Al Shabaab massacred hundreds at Garissa University, but some students weren’t.
“This thing was being predicted,” Garissa student Gideon Nyabwengi tells the LA Times.
Nyabwengi and others said the location of the Christian university, smack in the middle of Muslim territory, indicated that an persecution was inevitable.
“It’s like we were being experimented on,” Nyabwengi tells the Times.
Student Stanley Muli told the Times the students knew they were an easy target for Al-Shabaab, who primarily reside in Somalia, a mere 90 miles away from campus.
“We were fearing that if these people [Shabab] came, they could kill many, many Christians,” Muli tells the Times.
And when the attack came, Al-Shabaab separated the Christians from the Muslims, killing 147 people.
“What I managed to hear from them is ‘We came to kill or finally be killed.’ That’s what they said,” student Eric Wekesa told the BBC.
Now Kenyan officials are investigating the police response, believing rampant corruption prevented a sooner response.
Muli tells the Times the government “failed to protect us. We are angry, because we lost some of our best friends. We think, ‘How come security wasn’t there when we were are the university?’ They took no care.”
According to the New York Times, Kenyan officials are “desperate” to stop the terrorist attacks that have plagued the country for decades.
