A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
In the morning hours of Thursday 2 April 2015 at around 05:30am, Garissa University College was attacked by an armed group. Garissa University is located in Garissa town in the North Eastern part of Kenya. The attack was preceded by an explosion at the university entrance before attackers moved into nearby hostels where they took the occupants hostage. The Kenya security personnel (Police) responded to the incident immediately, although they couldn’t manage to contain the militia. The attack left 147 fatalities, and 113 casualties of which 24 were critically injured. The majority of the casualties had gunshot wounds, while others had minor injuries incurred as the students were trying to escape. The security officers who responded first also sustained some injuries. The institution had a total number of 749 students registered at the time of the attack. The town of Garissa is around 150 kilometres (90 miles) west of Somalia and had also in the past been targeted by militants possibly from the Al-Shaabab movement.
Kenya in the recent past has experienced repeated armed attacks in various locations across the country. Among other similar attacks in Kenya in the past 2 years are the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack, during which 67 lives were lost, the Mpeketoni attack (94 casualties), Mandera bus attack (28 casualties) and Mandera quarry attacks (36 casualties). The Garissa attack claimed the highest number of casualties (147), amongst all such recent attacks. This has contributed to increased fear across the affected areas, such as north eastern Kenya, the Coast, and within Nairobi, due to the threat of militancy. For instance, following the Mandera bus attack, non-locals were relocated back to Nairobi from Mandera due to fear that they would be attacked. The survivors, family members of the deceased and the remaining population remained traumatized.
On 2 April 2015, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released CHF 303,144 to support the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) respond to the immediate psychosocial needs of 2,200 people that had been affected by the Garissa attack, over a period of three months. This DREF has been replenished by DG ECHO. The major donors and partners of the DREF operation included the Red Cross Societies and governments of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway,
Spain, Sweden and the USA, as well as DG ECHO, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) the Medtronic and Zurich Foundations and other corporate and private donors. The IFRC, on behalf of the Kenya Red Cross Society would like to extend its thanks to all partners for their generous contributions.
Financial situation: The volunteer budget line has been overspent by CHF 1,107 due to under budgeting for the volunteers as given the nature of the operation, more volunteers were required to support the operation. The balance of CHF 1,791 will be returned to the DREF.