Mandera quarry survivor recounts lucky escape from terrorist guns

NAIROBI: A survivor of the massacre of 36 in a quarry in Mandera has revealed how he escaped as his three colleagues were beheaded trying to fight off Al-Shabaab militants.

The oldest miner at 58 years, Erick Mujibi said his workmates David Mugo, Peter Nyagah and Anthony Kariuki were slaughtered when they tried to defend the other miners.

"They started with Mugo who was almost my age and said they wanted to show others they were serious. They slaughtered him before moving to the other victims," said Mr Mujibi.

This was after he tried to argue with them despite their orders that they should all be quiet.

He explained when the gang of about 20 struck at their camp, they ordered them to get out and lie down. Mujibi said they spoke in a Somali dialect, saying "Kale, kale," (come come).

WARNED MINERS

One of the attackers spoke fluent Kiswahili and warned the miners of dire consequences if they resisted. And after they were ordered to lie down, one of the gunmen shouted, asking those who could read the Koran to stand up.

One of the miners tried his luck and faced them. They asked him how Islamic prayers are conducted and he successfully demonstrated although some of the gunmen doubted his demonstration. Nevertheless, he was spared.

Mujibi said he managed to leave the crowd by crawling under a tent and through a tunnel behind it before climbing almost 10 feet out of an already dug up quarry.

There, he watched as his colleagues were butchered.

"I could hear gunshots and shouts from my colleagues but I could not help them," he said.

He said one of his colleagues, who he identified as Mbithi, stood up and punched one of the gunmen before he escaped on foot into a thicket. He was, however, shot and wounded in the hand by other gunmen.

"I think that was not his day to die. He just stood up and punched a gunman after they had slaughtered the three and ran away under a hail of bullets. He was injured in the arm," said the survivor.

Mujibi said the attackers seemed to have surveyed the area well beforehand.

He denied claims that some of the miners were kidnapped by the attackers who were armed with AK-47 rifles.

There were 40 miners asleep in the camp at the quarry when the attack happened and 36 were killed; only four survived.

The other survivors suffered injuries and are in hospital.

Mujibi said there were almost 4,000 miners working in various quarries in the area and none of them were Somali.

He added for the last four years he has been in Mandera working in different quarries, there have been incidents of theft but he had never experienced a violent attack such as the one witnessed on Tuesday.

Mujibi vowed never to set foot in Mandera despite the fact that miners earn good money from the business.

He regretted having taken his nephew, Walter Oduori, 24, to the area to earn a living in the quarries of Mandera.

"His father is blind and needs help now that his son is dead," said Mujibi who accompanied the other three survivors and the 36 bodies to Nairobi aboard a military plane on Tuesday evening.

WORKERS FLEE

He said workers had fled the quarries in Mandera and the entire region.

"The county will be grounded because we are the ones who have been sustaining it and it will be hard for them to continue with life," he said.

At the mortuary, relatives and friends of the victims broke down after identifying the mutilated bodies.

Post-mortems are expected to be conducted today.

The attackers separated Muslims from non-Muslims and shot the latter, residents and police said.

They shot dead 33 and beheaded three.

The victims were lined up and shot in the head at close range. Others were shot in the legs after they allegedly tried to escape from the attackers.

The massacre comes 10 days after Al-Shaabab killed 28 people in an attack on a bus targeting non-Muslims in the same area.