The Davidson African Students Association organized a vigil of silence Thursday morning to pay respect to the 147 victims of last week’s mass shooting at a Kenyan university.
DASA President, Claude Eghan, introduced the event to the large group of students gathered to honor the shooting victims. Sophomore Papa Kwadwo Morgan-Asiedu spoke detailing the attack and the pattern of violence that has arisen across the continent.
On April 2, students at Garissa University in Kenya woke up to sounds of gunfire. According to the Associated Press, Al-Shabaab gunmen targeted non-muslim students in a 13-hour operation.
According to Claude Eghan, this most recent attack is just one in a string of events.
“Just two weeks before that [attack in Garissa], a group of Boko Haram terrorists attacked a military base camp in Nigeria,” Eghan said. “Although their attack was futile, three military men were gunned down in the process. These are the most recent of the attacks by such groups in western and eastern Africa.”
Freshman Kebron Sawhny recited “Nightfall in Soweto,” a poem by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali written in apartheid South Africa, before requesting a brief moment of silence from a crowd that included students, faculty, and staff.
Eghan said that the event was designed to raise awareness in the Davidson community about these tragic events.
“Not a lot of people do know about this,” he said. “It’s become almost like a normalcy for most people because it’s happened so many times. … We want to make people in Davidson aware that we as Africans on campus do still care.”
Eghan stressed the importance of caring and support for the victims and surrounding community.
“There’s been a lot of talk about privilege, and we as Africans do realize how privileged we are to be in a place like this,” he said. “For us to put our privilege to good use we deem it fit to make people in Davidson aware that… [this] is happening and to get them to sympathize with us in this moment of sadness.”