TAZMA MAJAMBAZI YALIVYOUA KENYA NA WENGINE KUWATEKA

Gunmen attack Kenyan shopping centre leaving at least 15 people dead

At least 15 people have been killed in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, after gunmen opened fire and threw grenades in an expensive shopping centre.

Witnesses said the gunmen told Muslims to leave and shot those they believed were non-Muslim.

Abbas Guled, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross Society, said: "I would say so far we have at least 15 dead. The casualties are many, and that's only what we have on the outside. Inside there are even more casualties and shooting is still going on."

A wounded woman is helped to safety after gunmen opened fire in a shopping centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images

The Nairobi police chief, Benson Kibue, said officers were engaged in a shootout with the attackers. He initially said the men had been trying to rob a shop within the centre but later described the incident as a terrorist attack.

Elijah Kamau told the Associated Press the gunmen made the statement about Muslims as they began their attack at the Westgate shopping centre.

Armed police arrived nearly half an hour after the attacks began and engaged the gunmen in a shootout. Officers shouted: "Get out, get out", and scores of shoppers fled the building. At least half a dozen were bloodied and helped by first-aiders.

Security guards used shopping trollies to wheel out several wounded children and at least one man.

A Kenyan woman is carried away from the shopping centre. Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images

Rob Vandijk, who works at the Dutch embassy, said he was eating at a restaurant in the shopping centre when attackers lobbed grenades inside the building. He said gunfire then burst out and people screamed as they dropped to the ground.

A former British soldier told reporters: "I personally touched the eyes of four people and they were dead. One of them was a child. It's carnage up there."

Cars were left abandoned outside the centre after the attack started around midday on Saturday.

Other witnesses said they had seen about five armed assailants storm the Westgate shopping centre and that the incident appeared to be an attack rather than an armed robbery.

"They don't seem like thugs. This is not a robbery incident," Yukeh Mannasseh told Reuters. "It seems like an attack. The guards who saw them said they were shooting indiscriminately."

The Somalian rebel group al-Shabab vowed in 2011 to carry out a large-scale attack in Nairobi in retaliation for Kenya sending troops into Somalia to fight them.

The centre is situated in Nairobi's affluent Westlands area and is frequented by expatriates and rich Kenyans.