‘If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot’

Garissa: 12.22 The first eyewitness accounts are beginning to come in.

13.26 Our Africa correspondent, Aislinn Laing, sends the following update:

Kenyan Red Cross reporting on Twitter that 50 hostages have been freed after being held in a female dormitory.

Aid agencies are moving in with medical supplies and residents of Garissa have begun queuing up to give blood to help the many injured in the attack. 

Collins Wetangula, the vice chairman of the student union, said he was preparing to take a shower when he heard gunshots coming from Tana dorm, which hosts both men and women, 150 yards away. The campus has six dorms and at least 887 students, he said.

He told AP news agency that when he heard the gunshots he locked himself and three roommates in their room.

All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are.

The gunmen were saying sisi ni al-Shabab (Swaihi for we are al-Shabaab). If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot. With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die.

The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military.

The soldiers took him and around 20 others to safety.