Families search for missing relatives

Relatives of one of the Westgate Mall victims at the City Mortuary in Nairobi on Tuesday. JENNIFER MUIRURI 

By SIMON CIURI

Details on bodies believed to be trapped inside the Westgate mall remained scanty yesterday, heightening anxiety among families that were still looking for missing relatives.

Interior secretary Joseph ole Lenku said in the evening that there were not many people trapped in the building whose three floors collapsed despite relief agencies saying about 40 people were missing.

“We believe there are... a number of people trapped inside the building,” ole Lenku said. A joint US, Israel, Britain, Canada and Interpol forensic team was on the scene yesterday to investigate the attack.

There have been reports that US and British nationals were involved in the attack.

Family members of unaccounted for people, including two Germans, went to the City Mortuary to check whether bodies of their relatives were preserved there.

“We are sorry, all the foreign victims who were at City Mortuary have already been transferred to Lee Funeral home by their relatives. Their origin is from Japan and South Korea,’’ a mortuary attendant explained to the Germans.

At one corner, Red Cross officials could be seen offering counselling to family members who had gone to look for their relatives at the morgue.

City Mortuary Superintended Jacob Nyongesa said there were 37 bodies at the morgue from the Westgate incident, but all had been identified.

Red Cross members were taken around the facility to assess storage conditions. Most of the dead had severe head and eye injuries and seemed to have been shot at a close range.

Receive more bodies

“We are laying the ground to receive more bodies from the Westgate Shopping. We have been briefed by the Red Cross on what to expect,’’ Mr Nyongesa said, declining to give more details.

He said no bodies had been taken to the mortuary since the siege ended on Tuesday.

Sources told the Business Daily that retrieving bodies from the rubble of the collapsed building were being hampered by forensic procedures meant to ascertain the attackers did not leave any explosives.

Other sources said some bodies at the scene, believed to be those of attackers, had been burnt beyond recognition in a bid to conceal their identities.