Briton and American among dead in Nairobi hotel attack

A Briton and an American were among at least 14 people killed in a militant attack on a hotel and office complex in Nairobi on Tuesday, officials and relatives have said.

“I am very sad to confirm that we believe that at least one British national has been killed in the attack,” said Nic Hailey, the British high commissioner in Nairobi. “We are providing support to his family and friends at this very difficult time.”

Jason Spindler, the American who died, was the director of a business development firm who was based in the Kenyan capital, and had survived the 11 September attacks in New York. “It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that my brother, Jason Spindler, passed away this morning during a terror attack in Nairobi,” his brother Jonathan wrote on Facebook. “Jason was a survivor of 9/11 and a fighter. I am sure he gave them hell.”

Eleven Kenyans were confirmed dead, a mortuary official told Agence France-Presse. One victim had no papers, the official added.

The London-based consultancy firm Adam Smith International said two of its employees had died on the terrace of a restaurant in the complex where the company has offices. Abdalla Dahir and Feisal Ahmed had been working on the Somalia Stability Fund managed by ASI to “bring peace and prosperity to Somalia”, the company said. Fifty staff and consultants were safely evacuated, it added.

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, said early on Wednesday that security forces had ended operations at the dusitD2 hotel, having killed all four attackers.

Families who went to the Chiromo morgue were told they could not view the bodies until a forensic investigation had been performed, provoking grief and anger.

The family of a missing 35-year-old man collapsed in the courtyard upon hearing that a body had arrived with his identification papers. “He is gone, he is gone,” the father repeated into his phone as his mother wrapped a shawl around herself and wept.

A woman who gave her name as Njoki wept as she said: “My sister is not in any of the hospitals and the last time we spoke she was a bit calm but suddenly she started crying and shouting and I could hear gunshots and her phone remained on but she wasn’t speaking. We have no doubt her body is here. Let them allow us in.”

As other families pleaded to be allowed access, an elderly couple arrived in silence, bringing a freshly pressed suit to dress their dead son.

Hiram Macharia, a marketing executive at LG Electronics, said he and some colleagues had been rescued by police from their office two hours after the attack began, but that one workmate did not survive.

“One of our colleagues went to the top of the building and his body was found there,” Macharia said outside the hotel.

Kenyatta said more than 700 civilians were safely evacuated from the complex.

The assault began shortly after 3pm on Tuesday with an explosion in the parking lot and then a suicide bomb blast in the hotel’s foyer, police said.

Al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist organisation based in neighbouring Somalia, said it had carried out the attack. The group was responsible for an attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013 that killed at least 67.

A woman rescued from the hair salon she manages in the dusitD2 complex on Tuesday also survived the Westgate attack, local media reported. “I was working there when the attackers stormed in, it was not easy just like today. All I can say is that I thank God,” Tracy Wanjiru told Nairobi News.

Wanjiru said she heard a loud explosion on Tuesday and went out to see what was happening. “I jumped back to the salon, told my colleagues to be keen because we were under attack. They dismissed me at first but when they heard wails and screams, everyone went into hiding,” she said.