The death toll at an attack Somali Islamist militants on a Nairobi shopping mall has risen to 59, Kenya's interior minister said Sunday.
"We still have hostages in the mall, and this makes the operation delicate. We have 59 people who have been killed so far," Joseph Ole Lenku said.
Kenyan officials had earlier said “major operations” were underway with police and soldiers engaged in an apparent final bid to put an end to the 17-hour-long battle. The Kenyan government said an unknown number of hostages were trapped in several locations in the Westgate mall.
Somalia's al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels said the carnage at the part Israeli-owned Westgate mall was in direct retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia, where African Union troops are battling the Islamists.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation that he had “personally lost family members in the Westgate attack,” but said the country had “overcome terrorist attacks before, and we will defeat them again.”
“Let me make it clear. We shall hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to. We shall get them. We shall punish them for this heinous crime,” he said, adding: “Terrorism is a philosophy of cowards.”
Kenyan police described the attackers as a well-organised “terror gang” numbering around 10.
The Westgate mall is popular with wealthy Kenyans and expatriates, and was packed with around 1,000 shoppers when the gunmen marched in at midday, tossed grenades and sprayed automatic gunfire.
After hours of sometimes ferocious gun battles, security sources said police and soldiers had finally “pinned down” the gunmen and managed to evacuate hundreds of shoppers and staff.
“The work is continuing, but you cannot rush these things,” said an army officer posted on the perimeter cordon set up around the mall.
“Our teams are there, we are watching and monitoring, we will finish this as soon as we can,” he said.
A spokesman for Shebab said the attack was a response to Kenya's nearly two-year-old military presence in war-torn Somalia in support of the internationally-backed government.
The rebels said Muslims inside the centre had been “escorted out by the Mujahideen before beginning the attack.”
The gunmen were “holding their ground. All praise is due to Allah,” the group said.
The attack was the worst in Nairobi since an al-Qaeda bombing at the US embassy killed more than 200 in 1998.