Family wants bodies of two terror sisters

Two of the three girls who attacked a police station in Mombasa on Sunday were biological sisters, and now their father is asking security agencies to hand over their bodies for burial.

Police had earlier said they could only confirm the identities of two of the three slain terrorists — Tasnim Yakub Abdullahi Farah and Fatma Omar — and that they were piecing together the profile of the third attacker.

But investigations by Nation have established that two of the attackers were actually sisters, named Maimuna Abdirahman Hussein and Ramla Abdirahman Hussein. The latter had been mistakenly identified by the police as Fatma Omar.

While the sisters’ parents want their daughters’ bodies for burial, no one has come forward to claim the remains of the girl believed to have been the ring leader.

Tasnim Yakub Abdullahi Farah was an orphan who lived with her three aunts, all of whom were arrested on Sunday, shortly after the brazen attack on Central Police Station in Mombasa.

Ramla and Tasnim were classmates and very close friends at Qubaa Muslim School within Mombasa island. While a source had earlier indicated to the Nation that Tasnim scored a B- in her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination last year, these writers Tuesday obtained evidence that both Ramla and Tasnim scored C+.

TROUBLESOME STUDENT

Tasnim was described by teachers as a troublesome student who was demoted from student leadership because of indiscipline before she was expelled from school. She was once the school head girl but was demoted when she started showing signs of delinquency. Before then, however, she had recruited Ramla into her network of felony.

Their former classmates on Tuesday described the two as “naughty students” who always found themselves at loggerheads with the school administration.
The school remained closed on Tuesday for the Idd-Ul-Adha festival and we could not immediately establish whether Ramla was among five students who were last year expelled by management of the private school and forced to sit their national examinations from home.

“They were very close friends and disobedient, but never failed in their examinations,” said a former classmate on condition of anonymity.

Ramla’s elder sister, Maimuma, attended a public girls secondary located within Tononoka but was also expelled from school after a fight with a prefect. Just like Tasmin, she was forced to write her final exams from home.

Former classmates and teachers described Maimuma as a very brilliant student who scored a straight A in science and mathematics, and who even sometimes assisted colleagues who were weaker in the subjects.

Maimuma was born in 1994, and on Tuesday the Nation obtained a copy of her national identity card, which states that she hailed from Kisumu Ndogo in Changamwe Location. However, it was not clear whether her younger sister, Ramla, and Tasnim had any national identity cards.

Police sources indicated that the girls were radicalised by extremists with links to Somalia-based Al-Shabaab terror group. It is believed that the widow of a slain Al-Shabaab militant had been in constant communication with the young girls.

“Our forensic teams are investigating their mobile phones trying to recover data that would help us establish their communication trends and details,” a source privy to the investigation said.

Former neighbours of Tasnim in the Kibokoni neighbourhood of the island were still in shock on Tuesday over the apparent radicalisation of a girl they had helped bring up. One woman described Tasnim as a “very quiet” girl who loved the indoors and rarely ventured out.

The neighbour further said the family had moved into the two-storey building in Kibokoni last year from Ganjoni last year. Their landlord declined to give details regarding their stay in his building.

“They were just like any other tenants. They never failed to pay their monthly rent. I don’t know more about the family apart from a man who has been paying rent,” said the landlord.