Deadly ‘ terror’ panic

NAIROBI, Kenya — One Kenyan student was killed and 141 were injured in a stampede on Sunday at the campus of the University of Nairobi when students mistook several accidental explosions for an extremist attack, according to a university official. One male thirdyear student was killed in the crush of students, Peter Mbithi, vice chancellor of the University of Nairobi, told the Associated Press.

The injured students were taken to hospitals for treatment, he said.

He said an electrical transformer exploded, and that students thought it was an attack by Islamic extremists like the April 2 attack by Somalia’s al-Shabaab rebels on Kenya’s Garissa University College in which 148 people were killed.

Describing the Nairobi incident, Mbithi said: “It was around 5 a. m. and the transformer at the campus exploded about four or five times, which made students mistake it for an attack. Most of them jumped out of their hostels thinking it was an al Shabaab attack . . . There was no attack, but because of what happened in Garissa the other day they mistook it for an attack.”

Mbithi said many students were injured when they jumped from upper floors of their dormitories.