{"id":10529,"date":"2013-09-21T07:50:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T07:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nairobi-mall-gunmen-holding-hostages\/"},"modified":"2013-09-21T07:53:11","modified_gmt":"2013-09-21T07:53:11","slug":"nairobi-mall-gunmen-holding-hostages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nairobi-mall-gunmen-holding-hostages\/","title":{"rendered":"Nairobi mall Gunmen Holding Hostages"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{Gunmen who attacked a Nairobi shopping mall on Saturday have taken at least seven hostages, police and security guards at the scene told reporters.}}<\/p>\n

“They have seven hostages, confirmed,” an officer said as police were engaged in an operation to clear the mall shop-by-shop and evacuate terrified people caught up in the incident.<\/p>\n

The gunmen stormed the upmarket mall and sprayed gunfire on shoppers and staff, killing at least six, reporters and witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Several attackers and trapped civilians were believed to still be inside the large four-storey shopping centre more than two hours after the attack began, and heavy fire was heard as police units moved in.<\/p>\n

Police and ambulances surrounded the Westgate mall, which is popular with wealthy Kenyans and expatriates and would have been packed with families on a sunny weekend day.<\/p>\n

Terrified people could be seen running away from the compound clutching children while others crawled along walls to avoid stray bullets.<\/p>\n

Kenneth Kerich, who was shopping when the attack happened, described scenes of panic.<\/p>\n

“I suddenly heard gunshots and saw everyone running around so we [lay] down. I saw two people who were lying down and bleeding, I think they were hit by bullets,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Initially we thought it is police fighting thugs. But we could not leave until when officers walked in, shot in the air and told us to get out.”<\/p>\n

The motive of the attack was not immediately clear, but Kenyan media said the attackers, who witnesses said were black-clad and masked, may have been either armed robbers or “terrorists”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{Gunmen who attacked a Nairobi shopping mall on Saturday have taken at least seven hostages, police and security guards at the scene told reporters.}} “They have seven hostages, confirmed,” an officer said as police were engaged in an operation to clear the mall shop-by-shop and evacuate terrified people caught up in the incident. The gunmen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048392,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10529.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10529.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10529.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10529.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10529.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10529.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}