Garissa University College in northeast Kenya will reopen on Monday (January 11), nine months after 147 students were killed in a brutal assault by Somalia-based al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab Islamist militants.
Strapped with explosives, masked al Shabaab gunmen stormed the campus, some 200 km (120 miles) from the Somali border, in a pre-dawn rampage tossing grenades and spraying bullets at cowering students during a siege that lasted about 15 hours.
Since the Garissa raid, al Shabaab has carried out many smaller attacks along the northern coast before retreating to hideouts in Boni forest, a large reserve that is also a sanctuary for elephants.
Kenya’s military has launched several offensives to flush out the militants, who say the attacks are punishment for Kenyan soldiers fighting the group as part of an African Union peacekeeping force.
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