I’m alive because the gun aimed at my head jammed

Police cordon off the area after gunmen attacked a church in Likoni on March 23, 2014. PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA

What you need to know:

  • The other reason the attackers failed to cause more damage was because security officers manning the nearby JCC church, hearing gunshot, also shot in the air, causing the attackers to panic.

He survived to tell his story, but four people lost their lives and 21 escaped with critical injuries on Sunday.

Were it not for the jamming of the gun aimed at his head, Mr Bartholomew Odhiambo, 31, would not have told of the attack by unknown people out to kill as many people as possible at Joy in Jesus Church, Likoni.

“When I heard the first shot, my instincts told me to run and this is the time I came face-to-face with death. The bullet aimed at me hit a woman behind me. I went down and feigned death,” he said while on his way to the doctor after receiving his X-rays results.

Matters did not end there, he explained. The gunman, after realising the firearm had jammed walked to where he was lying and stepped on his back telling him: “Una bahati sana.” (You’re very lucky).

“As I lay there praying, he poked my back hard with the gun, until I felt sharp pains all over my body,” he said.

Asked whether he could recognise the attacker, Mr Odhiambo said he could not see his face properly because he had dark glasses, and only got a brief glance at his face when he adjusted them.

“I looked at him from the corners of my eyes as I expected the worst to happen only for him to tell me I was lucky,” he said.

According to him, there would have been more casualties were it not that the gun jammed.

Nearby JCC church

The other reason the attackers failed to cause more damage was because security officers manning the nearby JCC church, hearing gunshot, also shot in the air, causing the attackers to panic.
Sofia Akelo, is the victim who got the full brunt of the gunman’s fury after missing to hit his target Mr Odhiambo.

Speaking from her hospital bed accompanied by her relative Yusuf Huseein, Ms Akelo said she was hit on her right leg after Odhiambo ducked.

“I felt like electric power had passed through me and when I tried to walk I couldn’t; I had to crawl like a baby,” she said.

Standard Five pupil at Consolata Primary School Juliet Adikinyi, 11, shielded her younger brother James, immediately gunshot were heard. She escaped with a bullet scratch on her forehead which could have killed her instantly had she not been flat on the floor.

Visibly shocked and in deep thought, the girl who had been discharged from the Coast Provincial Hospital told the Nation that they had accompanied their grandmother for the church services.

“We left our mum at home and went for service with our grandma only to see people shooting at us. That’s when I pulled my brother down and covered him,” she said.

Her mother, Evonne Betty Aloo, just looked at her daughter and kept on shaking her head as tears rolled down her face.

“She (Juliet) has been discharged by my mother is still undergoing treatment,” she said before going to check on her elderly mother at the Casualty Department.