Kenya Garissa university attack: Five suspects held over massacre of nearly 150 students

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack on a university campus

Two injured students being helped off the university campus by Kenyan soldiers (CARL DE SOUZA | AFP | Getty Images)

Five people are detained by police on suspicion of being involved in the massacre of almost 150 students at a university in Kenya.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said on Twitter yesterday that security agencies arrested three people trying to cross into Somalia.

The arrests bring the number of held suspects to five as two of them were arrested at the college. Four gunmen were killed during the 15-hour siege.

He said the suspects are associates of Mohamed Mohamud, also known as Dulyadin Gamadhere, a former teacher at a Kenyan Madrassa Islamic school who authorities say orchestrated the Garissa attack.

Kenyan authorities have put a 220,000 US dollar bounty for information leading to Gamadhere’s arrest.

A survivor of the killings, who was found today two days after the attack, had been hiding in a large cupboard on the university campus while her fellow students were murdered.

Nearly 600 students were evacuated out of the buildings and around 79 were injured amid the siege.

Cynthia Cherotich, 19, said from her hospital bed that she hid and covered herself with clothes and refused to emerge even when some of her classmates came out of hiding at the demands of al-Shabaab gunmen.

The teenager claims that she had to drink from a bottle of lotion as she had been so hungry and thirsty while in the cupboard.

She was eventually coaxed out by her teacher shortly before 10am local time, as she did not trust that Kenyan officials were not members of al-Shabaab.

Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, a survivor of the killings at Garissa University College (AP)

Meanwhile, the militant group – which has claimed responsibility for the massacre in retaliation for killings carried out by Kenyan troops fighting rebels in Somalia – has threatened further attacks in Kenya.

“No amount of precaution of safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath,” the group said the statement.

“Kenyan cities will run red with blood ... This will be a long, gruesome war of which you, the Kenyan public, are its first casualties,” it added.