The gunmen didn't stop at 15. They shot many, many more.
147 killed in Kenya school attack, officials say - CNN.com
The massacre that killed 147 people and wounded scores of others at a Kenyan university lasted for hours Thursday before the terror was over.
"It is a very sad day for Kenya," Interior Ministry Joseph Nkaissery said of the carnage at Garissa University College.
The death toll is the highest in a terror attack on Kenyan soil since the U.S. Embassy was bombed in 1998. More than 200 people died in the Nairobi blast.
A total of 147 people were killed Thursday, according to the official Twitter account of Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre and Kenyan media reports. The agency also said 79 people were injured and 587 people were evacuated.
Islamist gunmen burst into the university before dawn Thursday, shooting students and taking hostages during early morning prayer services.
At one point, the attackers cornered a building in which 360 students live, but some of the students escaped, Nkaissery said.
Kenyan forces cleared three of four dormitories and had cornered the militants in the last one, the Interior Ministry explained.
"This is a moment for everyone throughout the country to be vigilant as we continue to confront and defeat our enemies," Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said.
There are usually four guards at the campus gates overnight, Jackstone Kweyu, dean of students, told Kenya's Citizen TV.
The attack was deadlier than an Al-Shabaab attack on the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi in September 2013 that left 67 people dead.
