Kenya gets better at helping attack survivors cope
On Thursday, 48 hours after explosions first rent the air on Riverside Drive, traffic once again flowed — or crawled, this being Nairobi — down the street. Police vehicles rumbled in and out of the still-barricaded drive to the DusitD2 hotel. A small scrum of press had gathered at the perimeter, awaiting what they had been told would be a controlled detonation of explosives found in the hotel.
Two suspects had been arrested in connection with the attack claimed by Somalia's Al Shabab militants, it was announced. The death toll had been revised upward to 21, not counting the five perpetrators.
Just down the road from the 14 Riverside Drive complex, at Chiromo Mortuary, family members of those killed sat under tents in plastic chairs, gripping each other’s hands while they waited for post mortems to be completed and the bodies of their loved ones to be released. A woman in a purple vest that read “Kenya Counselling and Psychological Association” rubbed the back of a young woman who was bent over in grief.
“We are here to support people who experienced trauma,” said Florence Ogola, a spokeswoman for the Kenya Red Cross. “Whether they were at the scene and were affected psychologically by what they saw, or whether they maybe lost a family member, we are here to help them accept what has happened and give them coping mechanisms.”
Read the full article at The National.