Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
A story of bravery to emerge from the horror of last week's terrorist attack on the Westgate
shopping mall in Kenya. 38-year-old businessman Abdulkadir Haji grabbed his gun after his
brother called to say he was trapped inside. Joining security personnel and armed civilians
who volunteered to go in soon after militants affiliated to the Islamist group Al Shabaab
had stormed in, in a hail of bullets and grenades.
"The horrific things we saw on that level, the level of massacre that had taken place,
the number of dead people we saw, the number of injured people we saw, the number of people
who were just lying down bleeding helplessly, at this point it dawned on me that the magnitude
of this whole thing, cannot just be my brother. These people are here to cause havoc, they
are barbaric, because I saw young kids who were shot, I saw young girls, I saw some elderly
women who were shot and this was a shock for me. I had seen dead people before, you know
in funerals in a road accident but I had never seen this kind of massacre."
As the attack made headlines around the world, so did images of Haji moving through the mall
trying to help those trapped inside. One picture shows him reaching out to a terrified little
girl.
"We hurled the tear gas canisters, she got that little girl out and told her run and
we kept, beg, asking her to run and she started running and I thought that was very very brave
of the little girl, you know just running towards strangers holding guns. I thought
that was brave, I thought she was brave. Things were moving very fast. We had no concept of
time at all when we were in there. You know, all the time you are just looking out, you
are trying to spot a shooter, you are busy rescuing people, getting people out of danger
so there was no time to think of fear of being scared."
Not even when he suddenly came across one of the attackers.
"I met with him face to face. He was looking at me and I was looking at him and he was
taunting me in Swahili telling me to come closer, he was saying (come, come) and I thought,
this guy is crazy. He thinks this whole thing is a joke or a game, you know, so I quickly
ducked then I think, let me shoot at him, so I come up again and he is gone."
Haji, himself a Muslim, dismissing any claims the militants might have of being on a holy
war.
"They call themselves Jihadists? I mean, even Jihad in Islam has rules of engagement and
the basic rule of engagement of Jihad is that you cannot kill a woman, you cannot kill a
child, you cannot kill an elderly person, you cannot kill an innocent person who is
unarmed, so where are they getting their teachings from?"
At least 72 people are known to have died in the attack, but many more are still missing.