Kenya attack: Three days of national mourning for Garissa University attack victims

Kenya has declared three days of national mourning for the 148 victims of Garissa University attack by militant group al-Shabab.

Easter ceremonies will be held to remember those who died in Thursday’s attack on Garissa University campus, and flags are expected to fly at half-mast.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed to respond to the attack “in the severest ways possible”.

Sunni Islam’s most respected seat of learning, Cairo’s al-Azhar University, has also condemned the attack.

The Kenyan Red Cross says that so far 54 of the victims have been identified by relatives at a morgue in the capital, Nairobi.

Buses are transporting more than 600 students and about 50 staff who survived the attacks to their hometowns.

Many survivors have been reunited with their families at Nairobi’s Nyayo National Stadium which has been set up as a disaster centre.

Almost all of the 148 killed were students and another 79 people were injured.

Four gunmen were killed, and officials say they are holding five people for questioning – one of whom is believed to be a university security guard.

Both Christians and Muslims have denounced the attack. On April 5, Sunni Islam’s most respected seat of learning, Cairo’s al-Azhar University, said it condemned the “terrorist attack”.

Pope Francis is expected to use his traditional Easter Sunday message to describe the students as contemporary Christian martyrs.

In Kenya, people took the streets to protest the killings and reject the idea that al-Shabab had succeeded in dividing the country.

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