Westgate shopping mall
in Nairobi, where four-year-old Elliot Prior confronted a gumnan after
his mother was shot in the leg. Photograph: Ric Francis/Zuma
Press/Corbis
A four-year-old British boy caught up in the Kenya
mall terrorist attack confronted a gunman who later asked for
forgiveness, after his mother was shot in the leg, it has been reported.
Elliot Prior, from Windsor, Berkshire, told one of the terrorists that he was a bad man after his mother, Amber, was shot in the leg after hiding under a cold meat counter protecting her son and six-year-old daughter Amelie. Amber, a film producer, had been queuing to buy milk in Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall when the militants attacked, and took refuge under a counter in the Nakumatt supermarket. She shielded her children for an hour and a half before being found and shot in the thigh, according to the Sun who spoke to the boy's uncle.
When the terrorists said they would let children leave, she stood up, the children's uncle, Alex Coutts, told the newspaper. "They had a lucky escape. The terrorists said if any of the kids were alive in the supermarket they could leave. Amber made the decision to stand up and say yes. Then Elliot started arguing with them and called them bad men. He was very brave."
The attacker is said to have taken pity on the family and given the children Mars bars. He then reportedly said: "Please forgive me, we are not monsters."
After discovering the advertising producer was of French origin, the men began to plead with her and claimed that the Muslim faith 'was not a bad one', according to the Daily Mail. "He told me I had to change my religion to Islam and said 'Do you forgive us? Do you forgive us?', said the mother. "Naturally, I was going to say whatever they wanted and they let us go."
Amber, 35, also grabbed two other children, including a wounded 12-year-old boy who had initially refused to leave his murdered mother, and took them out of the building. Elliott – in an I heart NY T-shirt – was seen with his sister and mother coming out of the mall, still holding the chocolate bars as the corpses of some of those killed in the attack lay on the ground.
Elliot Prior, from Windsor, Berkshire, told one of the terrorists that he was a bad man after his mother, Amber, was shot in the leg after hiding under a cold meat counter protecting her son and six-year-old daughter Amelie. Amber, a film producer, had been queuing to buy milk in Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall when the militants attacked, and took refuge under a counter in the Nakumatt supermarket. She shielded her children for an hour and a half before being found and shot in the thigh, according to the Sun who spoke to the boy's uncle.
When the terrorists said they would let children leave, she stood up, the children's uncle, Alex Coutts, told the newspaper. "They had a lucky escape. The terrorists said if any of the kids were alive in the supermarket they could leave. Amber made the decision to stand up and say yes. Then Elliot started arguing with them and called them bad men. He was very brave."
The attacker is said to have taken pity on the family and given the children Mars bars. He then reportedly said: "Please forgive me, we are not monsters."
After discovering the advertising producer was of French origin, the men began to plead with her and claimed that the Muslim faith 'was not a bad one', according to the Daily Mail. "He told me I had to change my religion to Islam and said 'Do you forgive us? Do you forgive us?', said the mother. "Naturally, I was going to say whatever they wanted and they let us go."
Amber, 35, also grabbed two other children, including a wounded 12-year-old boy who had initially refused to leave his murdered mother, and took them out of the building. Elliott – in an I heart NY T-shirt – was seen with his sister and mother coming out of the mall, still holding the chocolate bars as the corpses of some of those killed in the attack lay on the ground.
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