Al-Shabaab kill more than 140 at Kenyan university

Kenya's deadliest attack to date by the al Qaeda-linked extremists

Al-Shabaab militants killed 147 students and wounded another 80 at a university in northeastern Kenya on 2 April, according to the nation's interior minister Joseph Nkaissery.

Armed with AK47 assault rifles, the masked attackers stormed Garissa University College at dawn, singling out and killing non-Muslim students as well as holding dozens of students hostage for several hours.

The 13-hour killing spree and siege ended just after dusk, when four rebels strapped with explosives were killed by security forces, in what is the deadliest attack in Kenya by the Islamist militant group.

Most of the 147 casualties were students, but two security guards, a policeman and a soldier were also killed on the university campus, situated around 150 km from the Somali border.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed in Garissa and three nearby counties: Tana River, Mandera and Wajir, from 3-16 April.

The al Qaeda-linked group was responsible for the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in September 2013, in which 67 people were killed, and has been blamed for a series of attacks since 2011 when Kenyan forces crossed over into neighbouring Somalia to battle the insurgents.