Executed as she talked to her mother on the phone: Fate of 16-year-old victim of Kenyan mall massacre as it emerges terrorists shot some children five times

• Gunmen targeted 30 children who were taking part in a cooking event

• As many as 30 hostages were taken by the Al Shabaab terrorists

• Sources said militants hurled a severed hand and head from a balcony

By TED THORNHILL

Children as young as five were shot up to five times by the terrorists that carried out the Westgate mall massacre, it has emerged.
The attack, carried out last week by gunmen from Somalia-based terrorist group Al Shabaab, left 67 people dead, including six Britons.
New accounts of the extremists' merciless assault reveal for the first time the fate of some of the 30 children who attended a cooking event at the mall. Some of them were as young as 12.


A soldier carries a child to safety as armed police hunt the gunmen who went on a brutal shooting spree at Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi ion September 21

One girl at the event, 16-year-old Nehal Vekariya, was shot through the eye, according to The Sunday Times.
The paper reports her father’s final phone conversation with her.
He said: ‘She said “I’m okay, I’m with friends, call Mummy fast and tell her I’m okay”.’

When her mother called her she heard yelling and then gunshots, then the line went dead. She had been cut down at close range
The paper also reports that witnesses describe children as young as five being hit up to  five times by the terrorists, as they roamed the mall looking for victims.


Memorial: A soldier from the Kenya Defence Forces salutes while another pays his respects as they and other Kenyans came to light candles, sing and pray,to mark one week since the terrorist attack


Solemn: A Kenyan girl lights a candle to pay her respects to those killed in the Westgate mall massacre

Mitul Shah, 38, meanwhile, a London-born father of one caught up in the siege, was hailed a ‘hero and a star’ for reportedly offering hicmself as a hostage to allow children to escape from militants.
According to The Sunday Times, one of gunmen told victims: 'You didn't spare our women and children. Why should we spare yours?'
As many as 30 hostages were taken by the terrorists according to the British High Commission, with many of them still unaccounted for.
Eight suspects are being held over the attack according to Kenya’s Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said. Three others who had been detained were released. At least five attackers also were killed.


Destroyed: Vehicles are seen in the rubble in the destruction at the Westgate Shopping Centre

However, there are fears that some of the extremists, including suspected British terrorists Samantha Lewthwaite, may be on the loose, having escaped through the city’s drainage system.
A unnamed source told The Sun on Sunday: ‘It may have been a way out for some of the terrorists. They could have escaped like sewer rats.’
On Saturday leaked intelligence briefings revealed that the Kenyan government had been warned some months ago Al Shabaab was planning an attack in Nairobi between September 13 and 21.
One report named suspected  terrorists in Nairobi who were ‘planning to mount suicide attacks on an undisclosed date, targeting Westgate Mall’ and a cathedral.
Mutea Iringo, principal secretary in the Ministry of Interior, said: ‘Every day we get intelligence and action is taken as per that intelligence and many attacks averted. But the fact that you get the intelligence does not mean something cannot happen.
‘What we are saying is that we are at war, and that every day some young Kenyan is being radicalised by al Shabaab to kill Kenyans.’