Muslim passengers refuse to be separated from Christians during Kenyan bus attack

The bus that was attacked in Mandera, Kenya.

(Image credit: Twitter.com/IBTimes)

last updated 22 December 2015

Muslim passengers on a bus attacked by Islamist militants in Kenya would not split into a group separate from Christian passengers, a move that a local governor believes saved lives.

The bus was traveling from Nairobi to Mandera on Monday when the attack occurred in the village of El Wak on the Somali border. The gunmen ordered everyone off the bus, but the passengers told them they wanted to be killed together or left alone. "The locals showed a sense of patriotism and belonging to each other," Mandera governor Ali Roba told the Kenyan paper Daily Nation. He said the militants left after the passangers refused to split up, . Two people were killed, an employee of the bus company told the BBC, with one victim shot as he tried to run away.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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