Mixed

Kenya government charges 5 men over Garisa university massacre

June 5, 2015

Five men were charged on Thursday in connection with an attack by Somali Islamist gunmen on Garissa university in northeast Kenya that killed 148 students,

The assault on Garissa university on April 2nd, in which gunmen from Somalia’s al-Shabab group stormed in and sought to kill Christian students, has piled pressure on president Uhuru Kenyatta to do more to secure the border and other regions.

The effects of the assault are still being felt in Garissa County, where almost two-thirds of schools have had to shut because students, many from other regions, are not willing to go to work there any more, regional officials said.

Four men from Kenya and one from Tanzania were charged in court for conspiring to commit “a terrorist act at Garissa University College” and other related offences, court documents showed.

They are the first people to face formal charges over the attack.

Chief magistrate Daniel Ogembo told the Nairobi court that a hearing would be held on July 11th to rule on whether to grant bail to the men accused of involvement in the attack, the worst since al-Qaeda bombed the US embassy in Kenya in 1998. An event felt world wide and mourned by students of all races and all sorts of cultures