Nairobi Westgate attack: The victims (2024)

At least 67 people are known to have died since al-Shabab militants attacked the Westgate shopping centre in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Saturday.

This page showing what we know about the victims will be updated as new information comes to light.

She married Ketan Sood, who worked for USAid in Nairobi, in January 2012 in what has been described as Swahili-themed wedding, external.

She was six months' pregnant with their first child when she died.

According to reports, Ms Adatia-Sood was rushed to Aga Khan Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

She was "known throughout Kenya for her passion, vibrancy, and gift for making people smile", USAid administrator Rajiv Shah said in a statement, external.

On her Twitter account, external, she described herself as a "food lover, thrill seeker and a bungee jump away from sanity".

A graduate of South Africa's Rhodes University in Grahamstown, her three elder sisters described her as "a go-getter since childhood", external.

She was a presenter on Radio Africa media group's East FM and said she hosted entertainment news on Kiss TV, E-News, Kiss 100 and X-FM.

On Saturday she was tweeting Instagram photos of those attending the cooking competition in the car park.

Her colleague, Kamal Kaur, also a radio presenter, was helping with the competition and was at the event with her two young children when she said they all came under attack from a gunman.

"A grenade was thrown at us and it went off. At the same time he shot at us. The bullet missed my son by just an inch; it bounced off the wall and hit the boy who was next to him," she told the BBC.

"Then he [the attacker] came out again with his big rifle. My daughter kept whispering to everybody: 'Pretend you're dead! Pretend you're dead! He won't shoot...pretend you're dead.'

Ms Kaur and her children managed to escape - her children were hit in their legs by shrapnel.

"My daughter is very devastated because my colleague Ruhila... she was six months pregnant and she lost her life and we're very devastated about that... Very devastated about that," Ms Kaur said.

President Uhuru Kenyatta's nephew Mbugua Mwangi and his fiancee Rosemary Wahito are among the many Kenyans killed in the attack on the Westgate shopping centre.

Addressing the nation on Saturday, Uhuru Kenyatta said:

"I ask God to give you comfort as you confront this tragedy, and I know what you feel having also lost very close family members in this deadly attack."

According to the Irish Independent newspaper, Mr Mwangi's mother, Catherine Muigai Mwangi, had recently returned home from Dublin following a six-year posting as Kenya's ambassador to Ireland.

Mr Kenyatta's elder sister Christine Wambui Pratt was also at Westgate at the time of the attack, but managed to escape.

A sales and marketing director of Bidco, a company that primarily makes cooking oil, Mitul Shah was also up in the rooftop car park at the cooking competition.

"He died trying to save stranded children. He died as a hero," Half Jadhe Half Kyuk wrote on the KenyaList.com message board, external.

He described Mitul Shah as a fervent Manchester United fan.

He was also chairman of Bidco's football team, which plays in the second division.

An aviation and communications expert and a lawyer by training, Peter Simani was meeting a friend at Westgate mall on Saturday when the militants burst in.

He and his friend both died in the attack. His friend's name is not known yet.

Peter Simani chaired the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal and was also a director of the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).

Ngene Gituku, chairman of the CCK board, said that Kenya had lost a "brilliant lawyer with an incisive and highly analytical mind".

"My board highly relied on Mr Simani's guidance on delicate decisions on legal issues, especially those touching on the regulation of the fast-growing ICT sector," he said in a statement.

The 24-year-old food entrepreneur died on Saturday. It is likely he was at the food competition taking place in the rooftop car park.

He founded the food website Pika Chakula, external, which means "cook food" in KiSwahili, with a mission to "teach people how to cook".

"A very smart gentle man who enjoyed the simple things in life, outgoing and never learnt how to say no. Never had nothing against any one," said a post on a Facebook page set up to remember him, external.

His funeral was held on Monday at the Hindu Crematorium in Nairobi.

"To all our Pika Chakula fans. This week we will be posting Rajan Solanki's favourite dishes and recipes," the website tweeted, external on Tuesday.

The 52-year-old is survived by his wife Sangu and his two children, Nishiv and Sonali, and a large extended family.

Mr Shah was born in Nairobi, where he graduated from Jamhuri High School.

His family described him as an astute businessman and entrepreneur, who had had numerous businesses in his time including Raja's Souvenirs, Hakuna Matata and Sona Shoppe, a chain of photography shops.

He was passionate about sport, an avid reader and enjoyed politics, films and board games.

"He had a wonderful and witty sense of humour, was inquisitive and intelligent yet very easygoing with an open heart and made a lasting impression," his son Nishiv told the BBC.

"He always made the best of any situation and was always there whenever anyone needed him. His jovial personality and contagious smile will be deeply missed by all.

"A kind soul with a heart of gold, a gem never to be forgotten."

A student at the private Oshawal Academy near Westgate shopping centre, she died on Saturday during the shoot-out.

"Head girl, dancer, awesome friend," a Facebook community set up to remember her says, external.

"A girl who you could talk to about anything," the post continues.

Jyoti Kharmes Vaya was a 37-year-old mother of three whose husband worked for Victoria Commercial bank, it said.

Maltiben Ramesh Vaya was aged 41, a mother of two who worked for the Bank of Baroda.

"Both daughters-in-law succumbed to injuries related to gunshot wounds in yesterday's terror attack in Nairobi's Westgate Mall," a message on Facebook posted by the Pattni Brotherhood community in Nairobi said, external.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Tuesday that six members of the security forces had died during the operation.

The chief executive of Paramount Bank, Ayaz Merali, lost his wife Salima Ayaz Merali and daughter Nuriana Ayaz Merali.

Nehal Vekaria, a 16-year-old student. On Sunday, her family held her funeral where she was cremated.

The Daily Nation newspaper named Harun Oyieke, a lecturer at Co-operative University College of Kenya, as another of the victims.

The UK Foreign Office had said six Britons were among those killed, but it has revised that number to five because one man previously thought to be British was actually a Kenyan national.

None of the dead Britons has been formally identified, but they are believed to include Ross Langdon, who had dual Australian and British nationality (see below), and eight-year-old Jennah Bawa.

Jennah, daughter of Louis Bawa, had been on a shopping trip with her Kenyan-born mother, Zahira Bawa, on Saturday in Westgate. It is not clear if Mrs Bawa has been counted as one of the dead Britons.

The family lived in Leamington Spa until last year, when lawyer Mrs Bawa is reported to have returned to Kenya to look after her mother. Mr Bawa then took a job as the chief executive of a marketing company in Dubai and began travelling to see his family in Nairobi at weekends.

"The last time I spoke to them was on Friday evening, I didn't get a chance to catch up with them on Saturday morning. They were going to Westgate to do what they always did, grocery shopping. This time they didn't come home," Mr Bawa told the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, external.

"Zahira and Jennah were Muslims, but these animals just shot them the same as all of the others," he told the paper.

Mr Bawa had spent agonising hours outside the shopping mall, hoping to hear from them. He found out on Sunday night that they were among the dead, identifying them from photographs taken of victims inside the shopping centre.

British citizen Niall Saville was wounded in the attack, but his wife Kang Moon-hee, from South Korea, was killed.

The UK Foreign Office released a statement on behalf of their families which said the couple had lived in numerous locations.

Both families, the statement said, "need to focus on grieving and supporting Niall through his recovery".

The statement added: "The Saville and Kang families are devastated and heartbroken by the sudden loss of Moon-hee.

"She was very close to the Saville family and brought so much joy to all of their lives."

Ross Langdon, an Australian architect who grew up in Tasmania and had dual British nationality, died in the shootout along with his Dutch girlfriend Elif Yavuz, a 33-year-old health worker and Harvard graduate.

Mr Langdon co-founded Regional Associates and worked in East Africa on sustainable architecture projects.

"Profoundly talented and full of life, Ross enriched the lives of all those around him," the company said on its website, external.

"Ross's leadership on projects throughout East Africa was inspirational, and he will be will be very, very sorely missed by us all."

Peter Adams, a family friend in Tasmania, paid tribute to the couple on his blog, external: "There just was no dark side to Ross that I ever saw in the 20 or so years I knew him.

"We all took immense pride in both his architectural abilities and his very generous, positive, and loving personality."

Amongst his achievements was his "pro-bono" design for an Aids hospital in Kenya, Mr Adams said.

"In Uganda he designed and supervised a unique eco-village employing only local labour," he added.

Ms Yavuz, who was expecting their first child in two weeks' time, worked for the Clinton Foundation as a senior vaccines researcher based in Tanzania.

The UK's Daily Mail reports that in photographs from the mall that are too graphic to print, Mr Langdon is seen cradling Ms Yavuz, a hand draped protectively over her stomach.

The couple are believed to have travelled for the birth from Tanzania to Nairobi, because of its advanced health care facilities.

Former US President Bill Clinton and his family paid tribute to Ms Yavuz, saying she was "brilliant, dedicated and deeply admired by her colleagues".

"Elif devoted her life to helping others, particularly people in developing countries suffering from malaria and HIV/Aids," the Clinton family statement said, external.

The 59-year-old from the Vancouver area was on a business trip to Nairobi when he was killed at Westgate, a family member has said.

According to Canada's QMI news agency, he was a hotelier and was at a coffee shop with relatives when the attack happened.

His family in Canada, including three adult daughters, found out about the tragedy through relatives who survived the attack, The Province paper in British Columbia reported.

A 29-year-old Canadian diplomat who served at the country's high commission in Kenya as a liaison officer with the Canada Border Services Agency.

Her husband, Robert Munk, was injured in the attack but has since been released from hospital, officials said.

The 78-year-old Ghanaian was a renowned poet - regarded as literary royalty at home, where his poetry and novels are considered essential reading at schools.

He was in Nairobi as a participant in the Storymoja Hay Festival and was due to perform on Saturday evening.

He became known for his poetry in the 1960s and was inspired by the singing and oral storytelling of his Ewe ethnic group - his first published collection was called Rediscovery.

In the 1970s he taught at several universities in the US, returning to Ghana in 1975 to take up a position as head of English at the University of Cape Coast.

Within months he was arrested and detained for a year on suspicion of treason during the military rule of Col Ignatius Acheampong.

This provoked protests from Amnesty International and writers such as the beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

He became more politically active after his incarceration, serving as Ghana's ambassador to Brazil in the 1980s, and - after the country's return to multi-party democracy - as ambassador to the UN.

Ghana's President John Mahama said he was shocked by such a sad twist of fate: "A writer, politician and traditionalist with great wit, sense of humour and very well-spoken. He will be sorely missed."

Mr Awoonor's son was with him in Nairobi and was shot in the shoulder during the attack.

From the southern city of Bangalore, Sudharshan Nagaraj had only arrived in Nairobi the day before he was killed, Mr Akbaruddin said.

He was in the book trade and was also due to travel to Kampala in neighbouring Uganda and Ghana's capital, Accra.

A 40-year-old was from Tamil Nadu in southern India, Sridhar Natarajan was working for a pharmaceutical firm in Nairobi, Mr Akbaruddin said, external.

The ministry spokesman said that the size of the Indian community and those of Indian origin in Kenya was estimated to be 70,000.

A doctor and former deputy head of the Kenyan branch of the UN children's fund, Juan Ortiz-Iruri was at the shopping centre with his 13-year-old daughter Juanita.

The 63-year-old died at the scene, his daughter was shot in the leg and hand and required surgery but is expected to survive, his son Ricardo Ortiz told Peru's RPP radio.

He was due to take up a full-time post at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK and was expected to arrive at its Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health (CMNH) this week.

The 38-year-old was fatally wounded from gunshot wounds and shrapnel from a grenade, South Korean's Yonhap news agency reported.

Sources told the agency she died while being treated at a hospital on Sunday.

Her husband, Niall Saville - who is a British citizen - has received surgery for a gunshot wound and is reportedly currently in a stable condition.

According to AFP, the couple had only recently moved to Nairobi from Dubai.

The UK Foreign Office released a statement on behalf of the Saville and Kang families which described Ms Kang as "a bright, loving, kind and genuine person who will be greatly missed".

China: China's official news agency reported that a 38-year-old Chinese woman had been killed - her teenage son was injured.

France: A mother and daughter were "executed in the parking lot" of Westgate, Helene Conway-Mouret, the French minister in charge of nationals living abroad, told private French channel BFM-TV.

South Africa: One national has died at Westgate, officials said.