The death toll from a on an upmarket hotel complex in Nairobi has risen to 21, Kenya's police chief said Wednesday.
"We wish to inform that, as of this evening... six other bodies were found at the scene and one police officer succumbed very suddenly to his injuries," Joseph Boinnet told reporters.
He said the death included 16 Kenyans, one Briton, one American and three people of "African descent who are yet to be identified".
Mourners grieve as they prepare to pray over the bodies of Abdalla Dahir and Feisal Ahmed, who were both killed in Tuesday's attack. Source: AP
Another 28 people who were injured in the attack had been admitted to hospital without giving details on their condition.
Kenyan security forces ended the attack early Wednesday after a 20-hour operation that rescued hundreds of people and left all five assailants dead.
A Kenyan police officer from a special unit in Nairobi, Kenya,following the attack. Source: AP
CCTV footage broadcast on local media showed four black-clad, heavily armed men entering the complex on Tuesday afternoon.
At least one of them blew himself up at the start of the attack.
A police source told AFP two attackers had been shot dead Wednesday morning after a prolonged shootout.
"The two have red bandanas tied around their forehead and bullets strapped around their chest with several magazines each," the senior police officer said.
"Each had an AK-47 which has been secured."
Earlier Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said that all Islamists who had stormed an upmarket hotel complex had been "eliminated" after an almost 20-hour siege.
"I can confirm that... the security operation at Dusit complex is over and all the terrorists eliminated," Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation.
The death toll from the Nairobi terror attack has risen to 21. Source: AAP
Nairobi is a major expatriate hub, and the compound targeted contained offices of various international companies, in an echo of a deadly 2013 assault on a Nairobi shopping center in the same neighborhood.
“The main door of the hotel was blown open and there was a human arm in the street severed from the shoulder,” said Serge Medic, the Swiss owner of a security company who ran to the scene to help when he heard of the attack from his taxi driver.
