30 killed in Nairobi shopping mall ‘terror’ attack

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At least 30 people have reportedly been killed and 60 wounded in a suspected terrorist attack on a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Gunmen opened fire and detonated grenades inside the Westgate centre, a mall popular with expatriates.

Police chief Benson Kibue described the incident as a terrorist attack, telling the AP news agency up to 10 men exchanged gunfire with police.

A spokesman for Kenya’s Ministry of Interior added: “It is a possibility that it is an attack by terrorists, so we are treating the matter very seriously.”

At least 30 people were killed in attack, according to a Kenyan Red Cross official who spoke to AP.

Police sources said they had wounded and detained one of the suspects and hoped that the situation “would soon be under control”.

Suspects had been “pinned down”, a security source added.

Earlier, Abbas Guled, a spokesman for the charity, said: “The casualties are many and that’s only what we have on the outside. Inside there are even more casualties and shooting is still going on.”

Staff at a supermarket and a jewellery store were among a number of people taken hostage by the attackers, according to Nairobi-based journalist Abdi Osman Adan.

He told Sky News witnesses reported seeing the attackers “firing at any police officers who tried to approach the building”.

Security forces were still trying to rescue those trapped inside the mall hours after the start of the siege, going from shop to shop to evacuate shoppers and staff.

Graphic photographs taken at the scene showed people with serious injuries being treated at a makeshift hospital inside a food court.

Other images showed injured people being carried out of the mall in shopping trolleys, as well as upturned tables and chairs from where people had fled the shooting.

SkyNews