Kenyan churches used armed guards to protect their congregations Sunday, as Easter services were dedicated to the 148 victims of Thursday’s massacre by al-Shabab militants at a university.
Ceremonies were held across Kenya in memory of those killed at Garissa University College by the Somalia-based Islamist extremist group.
For the several hundred members of Garissa’s Christian minority, which is fearful following the attack by al-Shabab, Sunday’s service was laden with emotion. The gunmen who attacked Garissa University College on Thursday singled out Christians for killing, though al-Shabab has a long record of killing Muslims over the years.
“We just keep on praying that God can help us, to comfort us in this difficult time,” said Dominick Odhiambo, a worshipper who said he planned to abandon his job as a plumber in Garissa and leave for his hometown because he was afraid.
In Garissa, where masked gunmen in 2012 killed more than a dozen people in simultaneous gun and grenade raids on two churches, six soldiers guarded the town’s main Christian church and about 100 worshippers ahead of Sunday mass.
“Thank you for coming, so many of you,” Bishop Joseph Alessandro said to the congregation at Our Lady of Consolation Church. He said some of those who died in Thursday’s attack would have been at the service, and he read condolence messages from around the world.
Lagho said churches in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa were hiring armed police and private security guards for mass on Easter Sunday. Christians make up 83 percent of Kenya’s 44 million population.
During a televised address Saturday, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared a three-day mourning period to begin Sunday, appealing to Kenyans to safeguard the nation’s “peace and stability.”
Kenyatta stressed his belief that “Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.” He said “the radicalization that breeds terrorism” is conducted “in the full glare of day.”
Also Sunday, Kenya identified one of the al-Shabab gunmen who massacred students at a northeastern university as the son of a Kenyan government official, Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka told Reuters.
Some material for this report came from AP, Reuters and AFP.
