Elaine Dang/Courtesy

Elaine Dang thought she was going to die.

Caught in the middle of a siege that would later become Kenya’s deadliest terrorist attack since 1998, the UC Berkeley alumna found herself huddling under a counter, trying to make herself invisible to the gunmen attacking Nairobi’s upscale Westgate Mall.

“It was this weird kind of competition in my mind where half of my mind was preparing for death and the other half was still yearning to survive,” Dang said in an interview with The Daily Californian earlier this week.

Dang, who graduated from UC Berkeley in 2009, had come to Nairobi a little more than a year before the attack to work at Bridge International Academies, a for-profit company that builds primary schools in Kenya. Since April 2013, she had been transitioning into a role as general manager for Eat Out Kenya, a Yelp-like startup.

That day — Saturday, Sept. 21 — she was simply trying to judge a children’s cooking competition.

Everything changed with an explosion. About 12:40 p.m., terrorists from the Somali militant group al-Shabab stormed the mall, throwing grenades and shooting indiscriminately. The mall, popular with families and expats, quickly became a war zone.

Dang sensed a large crowd would be an easy target and made the split-second decision to hide under a nearby kitchen counter. She collapsed on top of a woman already hiding and crouched in fear as more people dived on top of her, looking for similar shelter.

As gunshots fired from all directions, the woman beneath her wailed, blood streaming from a fresh wound. The woman was one of more than 170 people injured that day. That total included Dang, who was hit by shrapnel just moments later while sprinting to a different counter.

Bleeding and running on adrenaline, Dang found herself next to a man and his wife, both of whom had been hit.

“Are we going to die?” the wife asked her hysterically.

“I told her, ‘yes,’ ” Dang said. “ ‘I think we are going to die.’ ”

Dang, whose friends describe her as deeply rational, strategized quickly and feigned death. She lay down facing the militants, knowing that if she were shot in the back, it would mean paralysis.

Surrounded by limp bodies, Dang lay there helplessly.

As the gunshots subsided an hour after the attack began, several men charged in to usher the victims to safety.

“I was actually so thrilled that I started crying,” Dang said, recalling her emotions upon making it outside.

Finally safe, Dang was rushed to a hospital and treated for two shrapnel wounds in her leg and arm. Christopher Suen, who knows Dang from her time at Bridge International, met her at the hospital.

“She was physically screwed up, covered in her own blood, but she understood people around her were much more injured,” Suen said. “She was taking it so rationally.”

Halfway around the world, Mary Dang was buying coffee on a routine Saturday morning when she received a terrified phone call from her sister.

Dang was hysterical.

“She was screaming and crying; we were both very emotional,” Mary Dang said. “It was kind of a blur.”

Elaine Dang visits a Bridge International Academies school in Kenya.

Although nearly three weeks have passed since the attack, Dang is still grappling with her experience mentally and emotionally. She has returned to her home in California and is recovering with her family.

“During the day, I’m composed, but I have crying episodes and very emotional times,” Dang said. Nonetheless, she says, she is on a “positive road to recovery.”

Dang says she wants to return to Kenya, a country she considers her second home, to visit close friends who still live there. Seeing how the country has come together in the wake of the disaster despite its ethnic differences has been heartening, she said.

“It was a beautiful thing to see,” Dang said.

Dang is uninsured in the United States and is unable to afford her medical expenses. The Dang family has set up a fundraising website to collect donations to pay for continuing care. Extra funds will be donated to the Kenyan Red Cross.

“Elaine is the kind of gal that when she walks into a room, everyone hears her voice,” Suen said. “She’s a phenomenal person, a great example of the kinds of alums you get out of Berkeley.”

Contact Giacomo Toginini at gtognini@dailycal.org.

The post UC Berkeley alumna recalls her surreal escape from death appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Creative Commons/Anne Knight/Courtesy

In an attack that gripped nations worldwide, terrorists took over an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, causing a deadly standoff that continued through Tuesday morning. At least 60 people have died, and more than 175 people have been injured, including UC Berkeley alumna Elaine Dang.

The images of the violence halfway around the world have shocked many, but they hit closer to home for some UC Berkeley students who hail from Nairobi.

As a child, UC Berkeley freshman Winnie Itago would go to Westgate Mall after church with her cousin to get frozen yogurt — always the strawberry and mango flavors — and eat it on the rooftop. When graduate student Narissa Allibhai returned home for the summer, she and her sister would go to the mall on Saturday afternoons for lunch. UC Berkeley freshman Samuel Karani compared it to a Target but said it is smaller.

The students describe Westgate Mall as a popular hotspot for local residents, foreigners and teens. News of the shooting and shock at the violence reverberated among them, and while none of their immediate family members were injured, the attack’s emotional impact runs deep.

Almost everyone in the area knows someone connected to the attack, Allibhai said.

“You would never expect this to happen — Westgate of all places, nobody would expect it,” she said. “I didn’t process it when I first heard the news.”

Yet UC Berkeley experts familiar with the conflict between Kenya and al-Shabab, the terrorist organization that led the attack, say the threat of violence has been looming for some time. What is unprecedented is the size of the attack. The group, which has links to al-Qaida, has perpetrated minor attacks in the nation since Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia two years ago, said Julie Shackford-Bradley, a lecturer in peace and conflict studies. The 2011 invasion targeted al-Shabab strongholds near the Kenyan border, drawing retaliation from the organization in Nairobi and other Kenyan cities.

“The threat was clearly going to grow when Kenyan forces chose to intervene in Somalia,” Shackford-Bradley said. “Those are the decisions that you make when you take a military action into a neighboring country.”

African American studies professor Sam Mchombo said addressing the al-Shabab threat within the nation’s borders is difficult because large Somali refugee communities in Kenya could easily conceal terrorists from authorities.

Despite their awareness of this history, UC Berkeley students from Nairobi said they did not live in fear of terrorist attacks while residing in the city.

The Kenyan students say they have faith the area will rebound from the attack — many Nairobi residents have already donated blood and money for the victims’ recovery. Back in Berkeley, the students have been supporting each other in their own way, confirming that others’ relatives are still safe and keeping updated on the situation.

“Kenya has strong people, and Kenyans are strong people,” Itago said. “We can get through this, and we are going to get through this.”

But uncertainty remains regarding the state of the attack — as of press time, while the Kenyan police tweeted that they had control over the situation, other sources report there are still militants in the mall. For UC Berkeley graduate student Kagure Wamunyu, support from her friends has helped, but she remains worried.

“It’s harder when you’re far from home, because you can only rely on the media,” Wamunyu said. “It makes it more scary, and just talking about it is a little frustrating. You can’t help but follow every news article.”

Contact the reporters at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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