Escaping a massacre

Amber Prior is still astonished she survived the massacre at Kenya’s Westgate mall, said Zoe Flood in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). When the gunfire started, the Frenchwoman took her two small children to hide behind a counter, next to a Muslim woman with a young son and daughter. “We kept looking at each other, giving encouraging looks as we hugged our kids.” The footsteps got closer. “The girl next to me said, ‘I can see him, I can see him.’ She was shaking, this little Kenyan girl.” The terrorist fired, wounding Prior, killing the Muslim mother and daughter instantly, and leaving the injured son in great distress. “I said, ‘You’ve got to be quiet or they’ll come back. Hold my hand, close your eyes, and pretend you’re dead.’” Sure enough, the footsteps returned. “And then, I don’t know why...I stood up. I said, ‘My kids are here and alive, please let them go.’” Which the gunman did. Standing amid the bloodied corpses, he tried to justify himself, saying, “We are not monsters.... I want you to forgive us.” Then he said she could leave, too. Since the terrorists coldly executed more than 60 men, women, and children, Prior is still bewildered. “I don’t know why he decided to let us go. Why at that particular time? Why me?”

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