Like the hundreds of terrified people caught up when the gunmen burst into the upmarket mall, Rachael made desperate attempts to run for her life.
“Everyone was running around the parking area, people were climbing on cars trying to jump out from car tops.
I jumped on a car but when I tried to jump out of the parking area, I couldn’t because everyone was behind hanging onto me to also jump out,” she remembers.
In that confusion, one of the gunmen hurled a grenade right at the corner where Rachael and other people were struggling to climb out of the parking area on the second floor of the mall.
“We kept on holding each others’ backs and falling back as we tried to jump out. It was at that time when they threw the grenade at us. We were many people, children were crying all over,” she explains.
Rachael suffered the wrath of the killers. Her entire body suddenly became hot.
Until the doctor told her that it was a grenade that hurt her, Rachael was sure that she had been shot on her left leg.
“I didn’t know the difference between a grenade and a gunshot. I thought my left leg had been shot. After they threw the grenade, I felt something very hot – something burning on my right leg. My pants were torn till to the knee,” she says.
Rachael then collapsed on the ground.
From where she lay, she saw a horrible image which she very freshly remembers in detail.
She saw a gunman shoot dead one of the people who had suffered the grenade attack with her.
“There was a white man, I think he had been hurt on the head and face because he was really bleeding and the sun was too hot at that time because the second floor parking has no roof. So when he was shouting ‘help! help! they came and shot him and he died just there,” she recalls.
“I could not lift my head because they were just killing everyone who was alive. I was very scared because they had already thrown the grenade at me.”
“I saw one (attacker). He had worn a mask… he had covered his nose and mouth. You could see the eyes but I couldn’t see the forehead. He had the normal boots worn by police,” she remembers.
Together with a young girl who also suffered leg injuries after the attack, Rachael stayed at the same position for two hours until when Kenya Red Cross Chief Executive Officer Abbas Gullet arrived with his team where they were.
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