I was really touched by the bravery of this Kenyan mom and I decided to share. God bless her and the dead.



With gunmen running amok from all angles, their gut reaction must have been to flee for their lives.

But this young family were able to escape the Kenyan mall massacre by having the remarkable presence of mind to play dead in their fight to survive.

Dramatic new video has emerged that shows the mother lying completely still with her arm around her youngest child as terrorists storm the complex.



Remarkable presence of mind: A family plays dead to escape the Kenyan mall massacre


Perilous rescue: A plain-clothed police officer crawls along the floor to get to the family


Tense: The officer tries to convince the mother to come with him as she lies frozen in fear with her child


In safe hands: The police officer scoops up one of the children as they prepare to make a dash for the exit

Her elder daughter lies motionless next to them alongside a bag of shopping.

It was this calmness in the most terrifying of situations that enabled them to evade detection and gave a police officer the chance to help them to safety. Having been alerted to their location, the plain-clothed officer can be seen crawling on the floor towards them.

He carefully edges his way around a barrier which the family are cowering behind in what appears to be a cafe.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t616O86vyM



Petrified: The mother looks over her shoulder in fear that the gunmen may be closing in on their location

the mothers love for her child knows no bounds. . beht, where r the shooters na or r they incincible that the cameras couldnt pick them out?

Lucky to be alive: At least 61 shoppers have been killed in the five-day siege

But it is clear the mother is initially too petrified to move and the rescuer spends quite some time trying to persuade her to come with him.

Shouts can be heard from behind them, possibly from the gunmen, and it appears this is what convinces her to move.

Eventually, the police officer picks up the elder girl and then scoops up the toddler as they brace themselves to make a run for it.

When they believe the coast is clear, they crouch down and dash out the exit to safety.

A photograph later shows the elder girl being carried away by a Kenyan soldier still clutching the bag of shopping.



Duck and run: The elder child sprints ahead as the officer carries the younger child out of the store



Heading for safety: The family crouch down as they run for the exit


Freedom: The elder child is later pictured being carried away from the scene by a soldier still clutching the bag of shopping that was seen with them as they played dead in the mall


At least 61 civilians have been killed since Al Shabaab gunmen stormed the Westgate shopping centre on Saturday.

The number of victims, gunmen and hostages has been unclear throughout the crisis as has the progress of the operation to secure the mall.

Kenya's President last night announced that his country had 'ashamed and defeated' its attackers, but even as he spoke shots were heard inside the mall.

Gunshots also rang out this morning, but government spokesman Manoah Esipisu said they came from Kenyan forces going room to room, firing protectively before entering unknown territory.

Somali terror group Al Shabaab today claimed that 137 hostages they had seized in Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall had died.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2431674/Kenya-attack-video-Escape-terror-mall-family-played-dead.html


That woman deserves national award for her bravery

Awww! Stories that touch the heart!

Okija_juju:


I dont get it...





I cant see anything from the Pictures.. She doesnt look dead to me in the first Pic at all.. Deadbody without blood?! Shes just lucky that those Al-Shabaab guys didnt pass that area..

you smart at all

That woman deserves national award for her bravery


i deserve a national award too because i learnt cartwheel this morning. it was so awesome..o_o

The attackers were in different corners of the mall, CCTV was able to capture the picture below

redcliff: the mothers love for her child knows no bounds. . beht, where r the shooters na or r they incincible that the cameras couldnt pick them out?

All izz well!

The heart of a mother...
God bless her for her thoughtful action and bravery

I think he was able to do that with the help of his colleague(s), remember he was not alone, he must have been shielded.

Okija_juju:



Imagine a Kenyan Police officer...

Carrying that child and standing erect inside an unsecured Mall.. Making himself and that child an easy target..





Even Nigerian Police sef no go mumu like this..

This cant happen in 9ja. Police go run for his life.

'Forever grateful': Saved mall-goers thank police


Lyndsay Handler, holding her daughter Julia, 2, and husband Nick, reunite after the couple had become separated for three hours inside the Westgate Mall during an attack by al-Shabab terrorists in Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 21.


Undercover police officers as well as unarmed mall security guards helped save countless lives in the initial minutes and hours of the attack.

Nairobi, Kenya - As al-Qaida-linked terrorists threw grenades and fired automatic weapons, the three plainclothes Kenyan police officers, lightly armed and not wearing bulletproof vests, helmets or other protective gear, worked their way to the roof of Nairobi's Westgate Mall and led a group of frightened shoppers to safety.
"I will be forever grateful for those three brave and selfless Kenyans," said Lyndsay Handler, an American who was among those rescued from the roof in the first hours of the siege that began Saturday. "Words cannot fully capture the depth of this gratitude, but anyone who has come close to losing a child or spouse can understand."

Photo gallery: Terrorists open fire at Nairobi mall

Undercover police officers armed only with pistols and walkie-talkies like those who rescued Handler and her husband and 2-year-old daughter helped save countless lives in the initial minutes of the attack — heroics the New York native and others they brought to safety say have gotten too little attention.

Handler was in the shopping complex with her husband, Nick, and their 2-year-old, Julia. Father and daughter were at the popular eatery, Artcaffe, when about a dozen al-Shabab militants descended on the upscale mall popular with foreigners and wealthy Kenyans and began firing indiscriminately.

Lyndsay, upstairs at a bookstore, headed to the roof, while Nick took shelter with Julia in a ground-floor storeroom of the mall's flagship department store, Nakumatt.

Father and daughter huddled fearfully for three hours until plainclothes police came to their rescue.








"It's hard to describe the relief I felt when I saw the doors to the storeroom open, and several incredibly brave plainclothes police, weapons drawn, motioned for us to leave as quickly as possible," said Nick Handler, of the Philadelphia suburb of Merion, Pa.

"Perhaps it was not rational, but I instantly trusted these guys with our lives. I felt a surge of hope that we were going to be fine."

The 31-year-old Handler, who works on agricultural issues in western Kenya, said the officers rushed into the attack zone "knowing that they were up against heavily armed gunmen and were putting their own lives on the line."

Video from inside the mall shows how security personnel worked to save lives. In one, a man thought to be a plainclothes police officer was seen scooting on his belly across the shopping center's ground floor to coax a mother and her two children lying next to a cafe counter to stand up and rush out.

The regular mall security guards were unarmed and powerless to stop attackers armed with semi-automatic weapons.

The al-Shabab gunmen appeared to specifically target the unarmed guards as they began their attack, said Ben Mulwa, a community organizer who was shot in the leg near one of the mall entrances. One of the guards was shot through the head just feet from where Mulwa was hiding.

He said the first responders — particularly the lightly armed officers who were among the first on the scene — displayed immense courage in a chaotic and uncertain situation.

"They're only holding pistols. ... The other guys are walking with machine guns," he said. "They could have easily shot them. I found that extremely brave."

Individual acts of courage aside, however, Mulwa and other Kenyans questioned how prepared the country is to confront a large-scale attack. Kenya has been hit by terrorists in the past, and Western officials have warned that malls and other public spaces could be targeted.

"The fact that kind of gunfire can go on in a prime location like that ... I think the response probably wasn't as good as it could be," Mulwa said. "There's some lapses that need to be addressed."

Kenyan army troops took the lead in securing the mall following the initial chaos of Saturday's attack, and it wasn't until late Tuesday that President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the terrorists had been defeated. Mopping-up operations continued into Wednesday, and occasional gunfire could still be heard from the mall.

The official civilian death toll stood at 61 late Tuesday, but officials said more bodies could still be inside the mall, and 71 people remain missing, according to the Red Cross. Six Kenyan security forces, as well as five al-Shabab militants, also were killed.

Among the six Kenyan troops killed, three were first-responder police officers accidentally gunned down by Kenyan army officers in the chaos after the attack, police officials said.

Kenyan officials have been eager to declare the situation under control for days. But the challenge they face could be read on the faces of the soldiers tasked with clearing the mall in the aftermath of the attack. Trudging from the gutted complex to the Oshwal Center, a nearby Indian community center that had been turned into a makeshift command center and triage location, the troops looked like they were returning from battle.

Some put on a brave face, like the soldier hauling an anti-tank rocket launcher who wore aviator sunglasses as he ate his lunch inside. But many others looked clearly shaken and worn out.

Ashok Halai, the Nairobi commissioner for St. John Ambulance, which has been providing volunteer emergency medical services since the attack began, said his crews have been coordinating with Kenyan security forces in treating casualties. The operation to clear the sprawling complex has taken a toll on the mood of the Kenyan forces charged with securing it, he said.

"Obviously they are stressed," he said Tuesday. "They would like to have peace. We would like to see this ending."

He said he wasn't surprised that it took so long to bring the operation to a close.

"They've tried their best," he said of the security forces. "Hostages were there. ... Because of the hostages, they might have taken this long."

Two soldiers involved in the operation described the challenges of securing the mall this week even as senior officials were declaring it all but over.

The first floor was soaked with water from overhead sprinklers that went off after fire broke out Monday, and there was no power on the third and fourth floors, they said. That meant troops had to carry out door-to-door searches and hunt for what authorities feared were booby-trapped rooms in near darkness.

"It's really not easy. You don't know where you are and where the terrorists might be," said one of the soldiers. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were under orders not to speak to the media.

Solomon Ichahuria, a 24-year-old sales clerk who works at a clothing shop on the ground floor, barricaded himself and more than 20 others inside the store when the shooting began.

Related: US experts help Kenyan forces search for bodies, evidence

He said no one found them for about three hours, when an armed man in jeans and a checked shirt — apparently an undercover police officer — knocked on the door. Those hiding inside didn't answer because they were unsure if he was friend or foe. He returned two hours later with a soldier who guided them out, he said.

Ichahuria said the first responders were heroes who "should be celebrated because they did save a lot of lives."

He felt lucky to get out alive after only five hours, though he acknowledged the response could have been better.

"If I was in a G-20 country and it took five hours, in my opinion that would have been a job terribly done. But then now, this is Kenya, and disaster management is not one of our strengths."

God wants d destiny of the children fulfiled,my destiny and d destinies of our children born and unborn shall not b cut short in d name of Jesus

Kai, imagine if this were Shoprite? The death toll would be more than 67

God forbid, the casualty will be too many to count, I was at Ikeja Secretariat early this morning, I shook my head at the security lapses at that mall (Shoprite). It was part of what inspired this thread when I got to work.

Ishilove: Kai, imagine if this were Shoprite? The death toll would be more than 67

Okija_juju:



I doubt it....







The Nigerian Police would have breached the Store and Killed all the terrorists in under 24hrs..

You have been watching too many action movies

dont8: God forbid, the casualty will be too many to count, I was at Ikeja Secretariat early this morning, I shook my head at the security lapses at that mall (Shoprite). It was part of what inspired this thread when I got to work.

God forbid indeed! I shudder to imagine what will happen if this should ever happen in Lagos

And this is In politics section?

Okija_juju:


Lailai o!!


Nigerian Police I know does not negotiate o!!

They would have quickly assembled a crack team, merged it with some Nigerian Army Special Forces and breached the store..




The worst thing is that like 3 of the Nigerian Polcie team will be shot, like 3 civilians will be shot as collateral damage, but all the Perps would be rounded up and shot inside that store..

Trust me.. Nigerian Police no dey carry this kind situation play.. All they need to hear is go inside and open fire.. #DATS ALL

Lmao!! The NPF will storm the mall and shoot at everything in sight, both moving and unmoving, but at the end of the day, the bad guys will be eliminated [s]as well as cause more damage than the attackers[/s]

Don't even go there, I don't want to hear the normal cliche, 'we are on top of the world the situation. If after 500 people have been killed, the police and media houses will report that 75 people were killed!

Ishilove:
Lmao!! The NPF will storm the mall and shoot at everything in sight, both moving and unmoving, but at the end of the day, the bad guys will be eliminated [s]as well as cause more damage than the attackers[/s]

Okija_juju:


Lailai o!!


Nigerian Police I know does not negotiate o!!

They would have quickly assembled a crack team, merged it with some Nigerian Army Special Forces and breached the store..




The worst thing is that like 3 of the Nigerian Polcie team will be shot, like 3 civilians will be shot as collateral damage, but all the Perps would be rounded up and shot inside that store..

Trust me.. Nigerian Police no dey carry this kind situation play.. All they need to hear is go inside and open fire.. #DATS ALL

'

I hope BH will not copy this action film.

Make she no de dat prank 4 boko boys o