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Feature: Kenyan recounts pain of losing friend in terror attack

Xinhua, April 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

One feels the bitterness and pain in Kenyan Peter Kimani's voice when he talks about the loss of his longtime friend Meshack Otieno.

Otieno, who run a garage in Kenya's Nakuru town in the Rift Valley region, was killed by the Al-Shabaab when they ambushed a bus near the north-eastern village of El Wak on the Somali border, December 21, 2015.

The bus was enroute town of Mandera where the deceased was expected to deliver on a welding job.

"He was a guy who was committed to his work and willing to train others. He was very experienced," Kimani who had worked with the late Otieno for 15 years told Xinhua on Friday.

The death of his friend came as a shock. He is yet to recover from it as he feels an empty gap in his social and economic life that he only wishes terrorists could never create to other families and friends in the country.

"He never deserved to die that way. He was only doing what a businessman does and that is looking for business, but they killed him and cut out all the support for his family," a disturbed Kimani told Xinhua during the first anniversary of the Garissa University attack.

Kimani said the late's four school going children face a gloomy future due to challenges of raising fees since their mother runs a micro-business, making barely enough profits to cater for household needs.

"Now we have to think about helping the family since he was the breadwinner. It is no longer an easy life for the family. Not at all. And it pains me to think about the children failing to complete their studies because Al-Shabaab killed their father," he noted.

Kimani said since the threat of the terrorists seems to be still lingering within the East African nation's borders, the Kenyan government needs to consider establishing a fund for helping families whose loved ones fell victims of the Somali Islamist group.

But he wants the security agencies to flex their muscles to not only protect Kenyans, but prevent the terrorists from penetrating into the country. Endit