Kindgo
Advanced Member
Member # 2
|
posted
Nov. 28, 2002
'Post' editor's firsthand report of carnage at Kenyan beach hotel
By KELLY HARTOG
Mombasa, Kenya
As holiday junkets go, this has been a short one.
Our Arkia jet arrived here early this morning. On the plane were hundreds of Israelis, most of them families on their Hannukah vacation who had come as part of a weeklong package tour organized by "Paradise Mombasa," an Israeli travel agency. From the airport we were taken to our Israeli-owned beachfront hotel, where we were greeted by beautiful dancing girls.
Our guide told us to go to the dining room for breakfast, as he went to the lobby to arrange check in.
Two minutes later, around 7:30, we heard a massive explosion. The entire building shook. From what I can gather, a car crashed through the gates of the hotel and into the lobby. Bombs were then thrown from the car.
I saw people covered with blood, including children. Everyone seemed to be screaming.
From the dining room we were herded out to the beach. There were no medics.
People were screaming for water, but there was no bottled water and the tap water is undrinkable. Our guide was missing. He has now been missing for three hours.
I tried to occupy myself tending to the children.
"I want to go home," they said. "Where are my parents?"
While on the beach, we learned that the Arkia flight we'd arrived on had been fired upon on its return flight by three rockets, one of which apparently slightly damaged the aircraft. There are 260 people aboard that jet, who have, it seems, barely escaped with their lives.
Some of us here have not been so lucky. We are now awaiting an Israeli air force jet to pick us up and return us home.
- Kelly Hartog is editor of In Jerusalem, a weekly supplement of the Jerusalem Post.
--------------------
God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
