The victims of the attack on Kenya’s Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi were from around the world. So far it has been reported that 62 people died, 63 are missing and about 200 were injured.
Ghana
Kofi Awoonor was a Ghanaian poet, professor and former ambassador to Brazil, Cuba and the UN. Ghana’s ministry of information said Awoonor’s son was injured and is responding to treatment.
Ghana’s poetry foundation said on its website that Awoonor went into exile after Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was driven out in a coup in 1966. He studied at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his dissertation was published in 1975. He returned to Ghana and was later jailed for alleged involvement in a coup plot. His time in prison was recounted in The House by the Sea (1978), the foundation said.
REPORT BY GUARDIAN.UK
Here are details about some of those who were killed or wounded.
Australia
Architect Ross Langdon worked in Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, creating eco-lodges and socially sustainable tourism in ecologically sensitive locations. He said at a conference last year that he thought trying to adapt to one’s environment was a better way to express respect for the communities in which he was working. “I thought it might be better to be like a chameleon – able to adapt and change and blend with our environment rather than conquer it,” he said.
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British media reported he was a dual national, though the Foreign Office did not identify British victims by name.
The Netherlands
Elif Yavuz was a senior vaccines researcher for the Clinton Health Access Initiative, according to a statement from the Clinton family. “Elif was brilliant, dedicated, and deeply admired by her colleagues, who will miss her terribly,” the Clintons said.
She had completed her dissertation research on malaria in eastern Africa and graduated this year from Harvard University’s department of global health and population, the school said.
Yavuz, 33, was Langdon’s partner and was expecting their first child in early October.
Peru Juan Ortiz-Iruri was a retired tropical disease specialist for Unicef who had lived for 25 years in Africa, according to Unicef and Peruvian foreign ministry spokesman Alejandro Neyra.
His son, Ricardo Ortiz, told Radio RPP that Ortiz-Iruri entered the mall accompanied by his daughter, a 13-year-old born in the US. She suffered a hand injury, but is out of danger.
Kenya
Ruhila Adatia-Sood was a popular radio and TV personality in Kenya and her husband worked for the US Agency for International Development in Nairobi. She was expecting a child.
Mitul Shah was president of the Bidco United football team in Kenya, Football Kenya spokesman John Kaniuki said. Shah worked for the Bidco cooking oil company and was reportedly attending a promotional cooking event with children at the mall.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s nephew and the nephew’s fiancee were also among the dead.
India Sridhar Natarajan, 40, and Parmashu Jain, 8, were killed and four Indians were wounded, the external affairs ministry said.
Canada Annemarie Desloges, a border services liaison officer in Canada’s High Commission to Kenya, “was one of our bright young lights, and hers was a career brimming with promise”, said Tim Edwards, president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers.
She was a 29-year-old from a “foreign service family” and had accompanied her parents on overseas postings before deciding to follow in their footsteps in 2006.
Vancouver businessman Naguib Damji also died in the attack, a daughter and niece confirmed to various media.
Two sisters from Toronto, 17-year-old Fardosa Abdi and 16-year-old Dheeman Abdi, were seriously injured. Their aunt Hodan Hassan said from her home in Minnesota that Fardosa was in critical condition with severe leg injuries.
Switzerland One Swiss citizen was injured, but the embassy would not provide the victim’s name.
Britain The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, said six British deaths occurred and the number could rise.
They include Zahira Bawa and her eight-year-old daughter Jenah, from Leamington Spa in central England, a relative told the Press Association.
France Two French women were killed, the French president, François Hollande, said.
South Africa
One South African citizen was killed, according to the country’s international relations department.
China A 38-year-old Chinese woman with the surname Zhou who worked in the real estate industry was killed, state media said. Her son was injured in the attack and was in stable condition in a hospital, according to the Chinese embassy in Kenya.
US Five American citizens were injured, US officials have said.
New Zealand Andrew McLaren, 34, a New Zealander who managed a factory in Kenya for the avocado oil company Olivado, was wounded in the attack, the New Zealand ministry of foreign affairs confirmed. He is in a stable condition in hospital.
Trinidad and Tobago
London School of Economics and Cambridge graduate Ravindra Ramrattan was also killed in the attack on the Westgate mall.
