Kenyan hotel opens after January al-Shabaab attack

Kenya’s luxury hotel complex where al-Shabaab attacked in January was reopened on Wednesday.

21 people were killed in the hours-long attack on the dusitD2 complex in Nairobi.

“Today is less than 200 days since that event happened. Today we are opening this hotel again. Life is back, business is back, the spirit and the strength of Kenyans is back, and nobody, no terrorist, nobody will kill the spirit of Kenyans and its visitors from coming to dusit”, said Kenyan cabinet secretary for tourism and wildlife, Najib Balala.

Hotel manager said while the facility was closed, staff was busy at work.

“Our job and the job of the staff that we had here during the 196 days was how quickly can we open the hotel so we kept the staff busy. We were training, we were doing counseling, we were doing games, we would pray all together every single day, and that is what we tried to do, keep the staff happy, by keeping them involved until this day today that everybody, you could see the participation of everybody, is still here, and we are all very happy about that,” Michael Metaxas said.

The January attack was one of the deadliest extremist assault inside the east African nation in several years.

Several Al-Shabab gunmen stormed the area, detonating explosives and sending panicked people fleeing.

Kenyan security forces ended the siege of the complex the following day, with all attackers killed. Over 700 people were evacuated.

AP