Thursday, 26 September 2013
Today a radio presenter told the story of how she survived the Kenyan mall massacre by smothering herself in the blood of a teenage victim to look like she was dead.
Sneha Kothari Mashru said the boy died of his injuries while they cowered from gunmen who stormed the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi.
She had to first switch off the phone to stop it ringing so as not to alert the attackers then came up with a gruesome plan to play dead.
She told Sky News: 'I took a lot of his blood, (as) much (as) I could and I tried to put it on myself.
'I put it on my arm, a lot of the teenager's blood, and while I was trying to put it on my hand I just realised that he had stopped breathing at that time.
'So I put it on my arm, as much as I could, and I covered my face with my hair, because my hair was let loose even then, just to pretend that I'm dead or probably badly injured,'
She said she would like to find out his identity.
Her story emerged as the search continued for bodies in the rubble left by four days of fierce fighting between Kenya forces and Al Shabaab militia.
Current death toll is 72 and is likely to climb with uncounted bodies remaining in the wreckage of the mall.
Another 175 people were injured, including more than 60 who remain in hospital. At least 18 foreigners were among those killed.
