Nairobi Mall Terrorist Attack

The following media statement was issued on 23 September 2013

Nairobi Mall Terrorist Attack

The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba, has written the following letter to his counterpart, the Most Revd Dr Eliud Wabukula, the Archbishop of Kenya:

‘My dear brother in Christ

The Bible tells us that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer together.

Yet I write to you, and to the Bishop of Nairobi, Rt Revd Joel Waweru, following the terrorist attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall, to express not only that the Anglican Church of Southern Africa stands in solidarity with you at this time, but that we too share in the grief that this senseless attack has brought. For a very dear churchwarden of my own Diocese, Mr James Thomas, has been confirmed among those whose lives were so brutally taken.

We have watched events unfold with shock and horror, knowing only that violence and death inevitably beget further conflict and loss of life. Our hearts go out to all those who have lost loved ones, as well as to the injured. We hold them in our hearts and in our prayers, knowing that we are united both in our humanity and in our grieving.

And so we pray for the fractured human family, in which such inhumane acts can be perpetrated. Alongside our desire for a swift end to the siege, and for justice to be done, we ask also that God will guide you with his holy wisdom. As you speak and act in response to these terrible events, may you be a channel of God’s grace: to comfort the bereaved, bind up the broken hearted, and proclaim the triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ over both evil and death. In condemning this appalling crime, may you also be able to bring God’s redemptive possibilities into the complex political, historic and religious context in which it arose. May the God whose light shines in the darkness shine through you, as a beacon of the hope and promise that are at the heart of the gospel.

Yours in the service of Christ our Lord and Saviour – crucified, risen and ascended

+Thabo Cape Town

Cc: Bishop of Nairobi, Rt Revd Joel Waweru