So many killed and injured. Here is just one story.
One of his poems on love, death and evil, “Weep Not Now, My Love”, which he reads here.
Via Yahoo:
ACCRA — Renowned Ghanaian poet and statesman Kofi Awoonor was among the 59 people confirmed dead in an attack by Somali Islamist militants on a Nairobi shopping mall, Ghana’s president said Sunday.
The announcement of his death led to an outpouring of grief in his home country. President John Dramani Mahama expressed his “shock” at the news, adding: “Such a sad twist of fate.”
Awoonor, 78, was killed and his son was wounded at the Westgate mall, Ghana’s Deputy Information Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu said.
Awoonor had been due to appear at the Storymoja Hay literary festival in Nairobi on Saturday.
Kwame Dawes, a cousin of Awoonor as well as a poet who was in Nairobi at the time of the attack, said Awoonor and his son were not together when the shooting started.
“I think the son went to pick up something at the mall. Professor Awoonor was in the parking garage waiting for him,” Dawes, a professor in the United States who is editing Awoonor’s latest poetry collection, told AFP by telephone.
“The son was shot while he was inside the mall. We don’t know at what point the professor was shot,” Dawes said.
Awoonor was Ghana’s representative to the United Nations under the presidency of Jerry Rawlings from 1990 to 1994. He was also president of the Council of State, an advisory body to the president, a post he left earlier this year.