How love conquered terrorism

Raisah Viranah, a 15-year-old girl, declined to move to the side of Muslims when terrorists ordered Muslims to leave Westgate mall.

She refused to budge to their command to leave her friends behind.

Angered by her stance, the terrorists shot at her twice leaving her soft muscles with two bullet wounds, one on the right hand and another on the back.

Raisah never wanted to leave the besieged mall to rush for medical help risking bleeding to death. She swore never to leave without her injured friend Harveen.

In a heroic deed, Raisah put Harveen on a Nakumatt supermarket trolley and pushed her until she arrived where paramedics were.

Another hero was Briton Simon Belcher, an owner of Safari Company, who was with his wife Amanda at Westgate when hell broke loose. He was shot trying to shield a four-year-old Kenyan boy from terrorist’s bullets.

The couple had just arrived at the mall when the attack began, and Simon hid under a car on the top floor with the child.

The safari tour operator is now recovering at Aga Khan Hospital.

A close friend of the couple, who asked not to be named, said: “When the firing started he got underneath a car. He was shielding a four-year-old Kenyan child who was also hiding there.

"They were all hidden in the top car park until the military began firing at the al Shabaab militia. The terrorists then all got under cars to escape the gunfire and that’s when they spotted Simon underneath a vehicle. They took a few shots at him and hit him in the shoulder. He was hurt but he saved the life of the boy.

Another survivor who dared the terrorists was Rahesh Saini who was rescued but went back to look for his wife inside the mall as terrorist bullets rent the air.

"There was no way I could leave without my wife and against the advice of the police, I went back alone, and climbed up to the first floor inside a shop where my wife and others were hiding," says Saini.

 He was on phone communication with his wife and he found her terrified alongside other shoppers.

 "Everyone was cowering in fear and I just held my wife tightly and prayed to God," says Saini, who is thankful that they had left their eight-year-old daughter at his brother’s house in Nairobi West. The couple was rescued after two hours. 

According to the Daily Mail, a four-year-old British boy confronted a marauding gunman and told him that he was a "very bad man." The boy was with his mother who had been shot in the leg and his six-year-old sister.

Bizarrely, the terrorists handed the children chocolate with one of them begging for forgiveness.

"Please forgive me, we are not monsters," the attacker told the children.

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