Death tolls rises to 70, over 500 students rescued

No fewer than 70 people have been killed in the al Shabab attack of the Garissa University College campus, BBC reports.

BBC reports that at least 79 were injured while more than 500 students were rescued from the college, even as interior Minster Joseph Nkaiserry said 4 of the attackers had been killed, and security operations were ongoing.

An overnight curfew has been issued in parts of the country including Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and Tana River which are all near the Kenya-Somalia border.

The Kenyan government earlier named Mohamed Kuno, a high-ranking al-Shabab official and former headmaster at an Islamic school in Garissa, as the mastermind of the attack and placed a bounty of $217,000 (N43 million) on him.

9 students were reported to be critically injured and airlifted to the capital Nairobi for medical treatment.

Earlier today,  Islamist militants stormed a university campus near Kenya's border with Somalia, taking Christian students hostage and battling security forces over several hours.