Kenya mourns Garissa attack dead

Kenya is holding three days of mourning for the 148 victims of an attack on students by militant group al-Shabab.

Easter ceremonies are being held to remember those who died on Thursday at Garissa University.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed to respond to the attack "in the severest way possible".

One of the gunmen has been identified as the son of a government official, the interior ministry has said.

He was named as Abdirahim Abdullahi, whose father is a local chief in Mandera County in the north-east of the country.

"The father had reported to security agents that his son had disappeared from home... and was helping the police try to trace his son by the time the Garissa terror attack happened," ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said.

Abdullahi studied law in Nairobi and was an "upcoming lawyer", Mr Njoka added.

The four gunmen were killed during the siege, and officials said they were holding five people for questioning.

Services took place on Sunday morning to honour the victims of the the attack

Prayers were offered for the dead and their families

The Kenyan Red Cross says that so far 54 of the victims have been identified by relatives at a morgue in the capital, Nairobi.

Buses are transporting more than 600 students and about 50 staff who survived the attacks to their hometowns.

Many survivors have been reunited with their families at Nairobi's Nyayo National Stadium which has been set up as a disaster centre.

Eighteen-year-old Lavenda Mutesi, who jumped out of her dorm room window to escape the attack, told AP: "As much as I'm grateful, I wish my friends were here, because I wish they could share this moment with me, with their parents... I lost a whole lot of friends."

Almost all of the 148 killed were students and another 79 people were injured.

United in grief

Both Christians and Muslims have denounced the attack. On Sunday, Sunni Islam's most respected seat of learning, Cairo's al-Azhar University, said it condemned the "terrorist attack".

Pope Francis used his traditional Easter Sunday message to pray for the victims.

In Kenya, people took the streets to protest the killings and reject the idea that al-Shabab had succeeded in dividing the country,

"What I can say is that here in Eastleigh [a Somali and Muslim Nairobi suburb] both Christians and Muslims are doing business together. There is harmony... There is no religion that says people should kill one another," one man told the BBC.

'Defend our way of life'

On Saturday, President Kenyatta said that al-Shabab posed an "existential threat" to Kenya.

He vowed to "fight terrorism to the end" and said the militants would not succeed in their aim of creating an Islamic caliphate in Kenya.

Families were reunited with survivors of the massacre

Meanwhile in Garissa, people saw the bodies of the dead gunmen on display

The president's address came as the relatives of victims queued at a morgue in the capital Nairobi to identify their loved ones.

The bodies were flown to Nairobi for identification, as local mortuaries have been unable to cope, and many of the students killed came from other parts of the country.

The bodies of the four gunmen who died remain in Garissa, where they were put on public display on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday, a 19-year-old girl was found unhurt in a cupboard on the university campus, where she had hid for two days.

There has been criticism in Garissa, which is 150km (100 miles) from the Somali border, at how the security services dealt with the attack.

Only two guards were on duty at the time of the assault, despite official warnings that an attack on an institution of higher learning was likely.

Al-Shabab, which is based in neighbouring Somalia, has pledged a "long, gruesome war" against Kenya.

The group said its attacks were in retaliation for acts by Kenya's security forces, who are part of the African Union's mission in Somalia against al-Shabab.

Garissa university campus

1. Militants enter the university grounds, two guards are shot dead

2. Shooting begins within the campus

3. Students attacked in their classrooms while preparing for exams

4. Gunmen believed isolated in the female dormitories

5. Some students make an escape through the fence

Attack as it happened

Who are the victims?

Survivors 'were too scared to scream'

Why is al-Shabab targeting Kenya?

Are you in the area? Do you know anyone who has been affected by the attack at the university? You can email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your comments. Please include a telephone number if you are willing to be contacted by a BBC journalist.

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