Former President Bill Clinton fought back tears Tuesday as he paid tribute to mother-to-be Elif Yavuz, a staffer of his foundation who was among the 61 civilians murdered by Islamic extremists during a bloody siege of a Kenyan mall.
Just hours after Clinton’s emotional remarks at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Manhattan, Kenya’s president declared the Al Shabab militants “defeated” after a four-day standoff with government troops.
“Our losses are immense,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said, as he announced three days of national mourning.
“We have ashamed and defeated our attackers. These cowards will meet justice.”
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Clinton described Yavuz, who was 81/2 months pregnant with her first child, as “incredibly gifted and good.”
CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images
A Kenyan soldier gives the thumbs up signal after clearing the top floor balcony and interior of the Westgate mall in Nairobi.
The 33-year-old from the Netherlands — a malaria specialist who worked with people suffering from AIDS — was killed alongside her boyfriend Ross Langdon, an Australian architect.
She was a “brilliant young mother-to-be who did everything she could to make the most of her life,” said Clinton.
The former President said he met Yavuz six weeks ago in Tanzania, where she was employed by the Clinton Health Access Initiative. The Harvard graduate was working as a senior vaccines researcher.
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“This beautiful woman comes up to me, very pregnant. She was so pregnant that I assured her that I had been a Lamaze father and could be pressed into service at any moment,” Clinton said.
He then paused, telling the hushed crowd he was “a little choked up” because he’d just gotten off the phone with Yavuz’s mother in the Netherlands.
Jerome Delay/AP
Relatives of Johnny Mutinda Musango weep after identifying his body at the city morgue in Nairobi, Kenya. Musango was one of the victims of the Westgate Mall hostage siege.
“I was telling her how well I remember meeting her daughter.
He said the couple went to Nairobi because they thought it was “the safest, best place for her to give birth.”
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Photos of the carnage showed Langdon cradling his pregnant partner as they crouched inside a mall restaurant — their untouched food scattered on the floor around them. The countertops and walls were riddled with bullet holes.
As many as 18 foreigners from Europe, South America and Asia were among the civilian casualties confirmed so far, the BBC reported.
Officials expect the death toll to rise as recovery workers gain access to Westgate Mall.
Elif Yavuz met former Clinton six weeks ago in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania.
Three of its floors pancaked Monday after a gunman set a fire. More bodies are believed to be trapped among the rubble, Kenyatta said.
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Five militants were killed and 11 captured as soldiers fought for control of the shopping center, Kenyatta said.
He ducked questions about reports that a British woman and two or three Americans might have been involved in deadly attack.
“Forensic experts are working to ascertain the nationalities of the terrorists,” was all the president said.
Yet earlier his Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told PBS “NewsHour” that “two or three Americans” and one British citizen were among those who stormed the mall Saturday and began executing shoppers.
REX USA/Mark St George/Rex/REX USA/Mark St George/Rex
Yavuz, a malaria specialist, and architect Ross Langdon were just weeks away from welcoming their first child when they were killed in the upscale Kenya mall.
RELATED: ‘WHITE WIDOW’ MAY BE CONNECTED TO KENYA MASSACRE
According to Mohamed, the Americans were around 18 or 19 and of Somali or Arab background. They were believed to have lived in Minnesota at one point, Mohamed said.
A British security source told Reuters Tuesday that it was possible that Samantha Lewthwaite, the “White Widow,” was involved in the Nairobi attack in some way.
Lewthwaite, born in Ireland, is the fugitive wife of London suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay. He died on July 7, 2005, after he detonated an explosive device on a train near the King’s Cross subway station.
“It is a possibility. But nothing definitive or conclusive yet,” the source told Reuters.
David Handschuh/New York Daily News
Clinton choked up as he remembered meeting the 33-year-old and joking that he knew Lamaze and could help her deliver.
Lewthwaite, who left Britain several years ago, is wanted in connection with an alleged plot to attack expensive hotels and restaurants in Kenya.
Al Shabab, the Somalia-based terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda that has claimed responsibility for the Westgate massacre, said on Twitter that no women had been involved in its attack.
“We have an adequate number of young men who are fully committed and we do not employ our sisters in such military operations,” the group tweeted.
Six Kenyan soldiers also died in the siege and at least 175 people were injured, with 62 hospitalized. Five Americans were among the injured, The Associated Press reported.
The bloody carnage began during the busy lunch hour Saturday, when an estimated 12 to 15 men armed with assault rifles and other weapons rushed into the upmarket Mall.
They began spraying bullets and lobbing grenades, and specifically targeted non-Muslims, witnesses said.
At the Clinton Global Initiative session, the former President asked the gathering to remember the victims and their families. “The way we live can be the most effective rebuke,” he said.
With News Wire Services
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