A little 4-year-old British boy trying to protect his wounded mother and 6-year-old sister looked into the eyes of an armed gunman at Kenya’s mall and told him what he thought of him: You’re a “very bad man,” he said.
The gunman, shocked and shamed, actually begged for the boy’s forgiveness, The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.
He handed the boy, Elliot Prior from Berkshire, and his family some Mars chocolate bars and told them: “Please forgive me. We are not monsters.”
The tale of the boy’s bravery emerged at the same time Kenya authorities tweeted on Tuesday that the situation in the mall was under control — while sporadic gunfire continued to sound.
Terrorists with an al Qaeda network stormed the mall over the weekend, killing almost 70 and wounding more than 100. Authorities estimate between 10 and 13 people were still being held hostage by the attackers.
The boy’s mother, Amber, said she and her children had stopped at the mall — the Nairobi Westgate Shopping Centre — to buy milk and were caught in the middle of the gunfire. She hid with her children under a cold meat counter, when the terrorists found them and shot her, injuring her in the upper leg.
“Then Elliot started arguing with them and called them bad men,” she said, in The Daily Mail. “He was very brave.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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