Kenya Mall Siege: 'Six Britons Killed'

Kenya Mall Siege: 'Six Britons Killed'

Six Britons, including a young girl, are among the 62 people killed in the attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi.

British businessman Louis Bawa confirmed his daughter Jenah, eight, and wife Zahira were among the dead.

"The people who did this, they are vigilantes, they are animals," Mr Bawa told The Daily Telegraph.

"They are using religion as an excuse to kill people. Zahira and Jenah were Muslims, but these animals just shot them the same as all of the others."

He said he had spoken to his daughter last week and had told her if she did well in her exams he would "buy her any present in the world."

She had replied that she wanted a pony and Mr Bawa said that she told him to "start saving up because she was going to work very hard."

Mrs Bawa was born in Kenya and moved to the UK several years ago. A relative, Shakuntna Bawa, told Sky News: "It's very hard, we can't believe it."

Another family member, Tania Bawa, described the mother and daughter as "wonderful people".

Two of the other victims, British-Australian architect Ross Langdon and his Dutch wife Elif Yavuz, were expecting their first baby in two weeks.

Mr Langdon, 33, who was born and grew up in Tasmania, designed an Aids hospital in Kenya for free and helped create eco-lodges and socially sustainable tourism.

His wife, Ms Yavuz, also 33, was a malaria specialist with a PhD in public health policy from Harvard University.

She had completed her dissertation research on malaria in eastern Africa and was working with the Gates Foundation in Kenya and the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Tanzania.

She recently met former US president Bill Clinton and posted a photograph of the meeting on her Facebook page last month.

"Elif was brilliant, dedicated, and deeply admired by her colleagues, who will miss her terribly," Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton said in a statement.

A friend of the couple, Tasmanian sculptor Peter Adams, said the pair dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful world.

"Besides a personal loss for myself, this is a major global loss," Mr Adams wrote on his blog.

Mr Langdon founded his own firm, Regional Associates, in 2008. The firm said on its website: "Profoundly talented and full of life, Ross enriched the lives of all those around him."

A businessman from Leicester, Samir Bharma, said four of his young relatives, who had been taking part in the recording of a TV programme called Junior Super Chef, had been killed in the attack.

Also killed was a Peruvian public health consultant, Dr Juan Jesus Ortiz-Iruri, 63, who was due to take up a post at Liverpool School of Tropical Medical next week.

Most of those killed among the attack were Kenyans but other victims came from China, Ghana, France, the Netherlands and Canada.

Among the dead were Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, 78; a Canadian diplomat, Annemarie Desloges; Mbugua Mwangi, the nephew of President Kenyatta of Kenya and his fiancee Wahito; and Radio Africa news presenter Ruhila Adatia Sood.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond warned that the number of Britons killed in the attack may rise further.

"Our current best estimate is we now have six British nationals who have died in this incident," he said, after leaving a meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee in the Cabinet Office.

"Of the additional two, one is confirmed and another one we believe to be a British national and we are awaiting final confirmation but we are pretty certain we now have six British nationals who have died."

:: A helpline has been set up for people in the UK who are concerned about relatives in Kenya: 020 7008 000.