Nairobi attack: Death toll rises to 21 after terror assault at hotel complex in Kenya capital

British man killed in siege named as international development charity worker Luke Potter

The number of people killed in the terrorist attack on a hotel and shopping centre in Nairobi has risen to 21, the Kenyan government has said.

Gunmen stormed the building on Tuesday, throwing bombs at vehicles before entering the hotel’s lobby, where one attacker blew himself up and others opened fire.

All five al-Shabaab militants who carried out the attack and overnight siege were also killed, with two people suspected of facilitating the attack arrested.

The number of those killed at the DusitD2 complex rose with the discovery of six more bodies at the scene and the death of a wounded police officer, said Joseph Boinnet, inspector-general of the Kenyan police.

Twenty-eight people were injured and taken to hospital, he said.

The dead include a British citizen named as Luke Potter, as well as 16 Kenyans, three people of African countries yet to be identified, and one American.

Mr Potter worked for international development charity Gatsby. The organisation said Mr Potter had “devoted the past 10 years of his career to helping some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world”, in his work across parts of East Africa.

Islamist extremist group al-Shabab, based in neighbouring Somalia, claimed responsibility for the atrocity on Wednesday.

It is the same group which carried out the 2013 attack at Nairobi’s nearby Westgate Mall that killed 67 people, and an assault on Kenya’s Garissa University in 2015 that claimed 147 lives, mostly students.

While US airstrikes and African Union forces in Somalia have degraded the group’s ability to operate, it is still capable of carrying out spectacular acts of violence in retaliation for the Kenyan military’s campaign against it.

The bloodshed in Kenya’s capital appeared designed to inflict maximum damage to the country’s image of stability and its tourism industry, an important source of revenue.

Twenty hours after the siege began, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta announced the all-night operation by security forces to retake the complex was over and all of the extremists had been killed.

“We will seek out every person that was involved in the funding, planning and execution of this heinous act,” he said in a televised address.

A member of the British special forces was among those who took part in the military operation to end the siege.

The SAS soldier, who has previously served in Afghanistan and Iraq, was seen working to rescue civilians trapped amid the firefight and explosions, and guiding Kenyan forces as they tried to flush out the Islamist fighters from the buildings.

The soldier is part of a British training team based in Kenya, and was at the scene mentoring Kenyan troops.

Agencies contributed to this report