Spot News, 2nd prize
Massacre at Westgate Mall
Tyler Hicks
The New York Times
The New York Times
21 September, 2013
On 21 September, masked gunmen opened fire at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall.
Tyler Hicks
Tyler Hicks is a staff photographer for The New York Times. He began working for The Times as a contract photographer in Kenya in 1999, photographing news stories in East and Wes...
Nairobi, Kenya
A woman and two children hide during an attack on the Westgate mall. They eventually escaped unharmed.
On 21 September, masked gunmen opened fire at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall. The upmarket mall was popular among expats and the Kenyan elite. In a siege that lasted four days, at least 60 people died and up to 200 were injured. The four main perpetrators of the attack were killed, and a number of other men were later tried as accomplices. The four gunmen were all of Somali origin. The Somali jihadist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was a warning to Kenya to pull its troops out of Somalia, where they were part of an African Union peacekeeping force in conflict with the militants.
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