“The Al Shabaab rebels tried to separate Christians from the Muslims for execution, but Muslims on board took pains to protect the Christians.” Good. But not all escaped: “The militants seized a lorry that was behind the Makkah bus, and the conductor was killed after he failed to recite the Islamic Shahada.”
“Non-Muslims Targeted in Islamic Extremist Attacks in Mandera, Kenya,” Morning Star News, January 3, 2016:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – An attack on a bus and a truck in Kenya by Islamic extremists from Somalia’s Al Shabaab insurgency took two Christian lives in December.
In the attack on a bus with more than 100 passengers in Kenya’s northeast on Dec. 21, the Al Shabaab rebels tried to separate Christians from the Muslims for execution, but Muslims on board took pains to protect the Christians, an area source said.
Al Shabaab militants stopped the bus from Nairobi to Mandera near El Wak village. Muslims on board told the assailants that the militants would have to kill them all or leave them in peace. The Muslim passengers loaned their Islamic face coverings to Christian women and hid other Christians behind bags.
The area Christian source said one Christian who tried to flee was gunned down.
“We lost one of our church members, Meshack Owino, who tried to run away and was shot dead, and three other passengers were injured while the Muslims refused to go back into the bus when the militia commanded them,” said the source, who requested anonymity. “They decided to shield the Christians as the militia tried to separate the Muslims and Christians.”
Militants with Al Shabaab, which has taken responsibility for the attack, hid when they heard the sound of a truck that they thought might be a vehicle of the Kenya Defence Forces, he said. Passengers returned to the bus, which was between Dabacity Town and Borehole II, and it quickly continued on its way, the source said.
“To us Christians living in Mandera, we see this as God’s intervention,” he said.
Al Shabaab militants stopped the truck, however, and killed the driver, said to be a Christian, when he could not meet their demand to recite the Islamic creed, or Shahada, according to news reports.
“The militants seized a lorry that was behind the Makkah bus, and the conductor was killed after he failed to recite the Islamic Shahada,” the Daily Nation reported….