College was growing fast, says principal

Garissa County and the entire north eastern region is not a place you can call green. But Garissa University College chose this colour for its corporate identity, perhaps to signify a new vision.

College Principal Prof Ahmed Osman Warfa, during a previous interview, explained that the colours represented the tremendous growth the college had witnessed against the expectations of many.

But everything has been reduced to nothing following Thursday’s terrorist attack that left 147 people dead, including 142 students.

The college, the only public university in the region, was engulfed in a dark cloud of sadness as Al-Shabaan militants butchered their victims at dawn, turning the halls and hostels into pools of blood.

When you approach the university, the first thing that attracts you is a huge green gate under a canopy of flourishing green giant Jacaranda giant trees that make an avenue on a gravel pavement.

According to the college’s vision on the gate, Garissa University College would be ‘a world class university of technology and development.” The college offered courses in education, business and IT.

It is situated off the busy Kismayu road. A thin tarmacked road snakes between kiosks and homes to the college. A section of the surrounding community earned their living by selling food, toiletries and other personal effects to students. Others rented out their houses to students.

“I have no one to sell to after all the student left. It is so sad that others were killed. I may have to move my shop,” said Mr Hussein Ahmed, a kiosk owner near the college gate.

The college has a three-metre high perimeter fence with both barbed and meshed wires. It had only one gate.

Its motto: “Oasis of innovation” is emblazoned in a well-drawn circular emblem where two camels stand on either side of a tree and an open book written GU (Garissa University).

SEVERAL NEW BUILDINGS

The pavement from the gate takes you to the playground.

As you enter the gate, there is a mosque on your right. The mosque is so close to the gate but almost concealed by the evergreen trees at the gate. The trees provide a shade that has been used by students to do their studies when the lecture halls are too hot due to the hot whether conditions that characterise the Northern region.

From the mosque, there is a building that houses a number of offices including that of the dean of students.

Different departmental heads are also housed in this building.

The college has several new building, some barely a year old. But there are also some old buildings, what was inherited from what used to be Garissa Teacher Training College.

Next to it there is a three-storey building with hostels that accommodated 360 students, with male students occupying the upper two floors.

The hostels are labelled Tana and Elgon for men and women respectively. The Elgon boarding house has another small hostel under it.

Then there a new hostel under construction, part of a Sh430 million project the college had initiated to solve accommodation problems.

All these buildings, some magnificent, are now riddled with bullets following the attack. Blood stains are also all over the place.

The hostels had bodies scattered all over the floors as attackers went on rampage. Sections of the fence were broken down as students tried to escape, some getting serious injuries in the process.

“I heard a sound of a gunshot and before I could find out what was happening, everyone was running. Some hid under their beds, others ran to the fence. I escaped by jumping over the fence,” said Jacob Wafula, a history student, who was asleep when the siege started.

On the material day, one was greeted by the lifeless bodies of two security guards which lay at the gate. They had been felled by bullets from a terrorist’s gun.

The attackers used the main gate, went to the lecturer hall then up to the hostels where they shot some students while taking others hostage for more than 12 hours.

Survivors said the attackers either came in at different times or used different path to access the hostels lectures halls as the students reported hearing gunshots simultaneously at the gate and inside the compound.

Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi announced that the college has been closed indefinitely and survivors transferred to Moi University main campus.