Kenya university terror attack: survivor found hiding in cupboard two days after shootings

 
Survivor: Cynthia Charotich (Picture: AP)
Rachel Blundy4 April 2015

A survivor of a terror attack at a university in Kenya which saw 148 people shot dead has been found two days after gunmen stormed her campus.

Cynthia Charotich hid in a large cupboard and covered herself with clothes as the terrorists hunted down students at Garissa University College.

The 19-year-old student was rescued shortly before 10am, according to Kenyan officials, two days after the mass killings.

Speaking to reporters from her hospital bed today, she described how she refused to emerge even when some of her classmates came out of hiding at the demands of the gunmen from the al Shabab group.

She survived without food and water - instead drinking body lotion to keep herself alive.

Recovering: student Cynthia Cheroitich (Picture: AP)

Cheroitich said she did not believe that rescuers urging her to come out of her hiding place were there to help, suspecting at first that they were militants.

"How do I know that you are the Kenyan police?" she said she asked them.

She said it was only when Kenyan security forces brought in one of her teachers to speak to her that she felt safe to come out.

She said: "I was just praying to my God."

Five people have been arrested in connection with Thursday's attack.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said in a Twitter post that security agencies arrested three people trying to cross into Somalia.

He said the three are associates of Mohamed Mohamud, also known as Dulyadin Gamadhere, a former teacher at a Kenyan Madrassa Islamic school who authorities say co-ordinated the Garissa attack.

The three arrests bring the number of suspects arrested in relation to the attack to five as two suspects were arrested at the college.

Kenyan authorities have put a 220,000 US dollar bounty for information leading to Gamadhere's arrest.

Meanwhile militants have threatened further attacks in Kenya.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta today declared there would be three days of national mourning to remember the victims of the university attack.

Additional reporting by the Press Association

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