Shocked witnesses said the attackers tried to weed out non-Muslims for execution by interrogating people on their religion or asking them to recite the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith.
The dead include six Britons including a British-Australian, two French women, two Canadians including a diplomat, a Chinese woman, two Indians, a South Korean, a South African and a Dutch woman, according to their governments.
Also killed was Ghanaian poet and former UN envoy Kofi Awoonor, 78, while his son was injured.
British businessman Louis Bawa said his daughter Jennah, 8, and wife Zahira were among the dead.
He told the Daily Telegraph that “my heart just stopped” when he was asked to identify them from photographs taken of those killed at the mall.
“The people who did this, they are vigilantes, they are animals,” Bawa said.
“They are using religion as an excuse to kill people. Zahira and Jennah were Muslims, but these animals just shot them the same as all of the others.”
Mall worker Zipporah Wanjiru survived by hiding under a table with five other colleagues.
“They were shooting indiscriminately, it was like a movie seeing people sprayed with bullets like that,” she said, bursting into tears.
Security camera footage seen by Kenya’s The Standard newspaper showed gunmen raking toilet cubicles with a barrage of gunfire, apparently after learning that people were hiding inside. Some survivors said they played dead to avoid being killed.
While the rest of Nairobi has largely been business as usual, deeply shocked Kenyans turned out in their hundreds to give blood, as well as raising more than $500,000 (Sh50 million) by Tuesday to support the families affected.
Israeli interests in Kenya have come under attack before, and the Westgate mall – popular with well-to-do Kenyans, diplomats, UN workers and other expatriates – has long been seen as a potential target.
World powers condemned the chilling attack, the worst in Nairobi since an Al-Qaeda bombing at the US embassy killed more than 200 people in 1998.
US President Barack Obama called Kenyatta offering “whatever law enforcement support that is necessary”, while UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the violence was “totally reprehensible”.
Vice President William Ruto returned home to Kenya late Monday after the International Criminal Court excused him from his crimes against humanity trial over deadly 2007-08 post-election violence for a week to deal with the attack.
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