Hello, you're listening to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service.

Today, we're taking you back 10 years to September 2013, when gunmen from Islamist militant group

Al Shabab attacked an aerobic shopping mall in Kenya, taking hundreds of people hostage.

The siege lasted four days and more than 60 people were killed, with many others injured.

Large parts of the shopping centre were also destroyed.

Daniel Umar was a paramedic on duty at the time.

He spoke to Rebecca Kesby in 2021.

Many dead and injured after gunmen opened fire in a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

I've seen a lot of people with gunshot beans, and I'm actually seeing a room with a couple of young girls

who are in the biggest state of shock.

We've been asked to lie down now, I've got to lie down.

The security guard was just lying next to where I was, was shot in the head, he died instantly.

Kenya had been targeted before in major terror attacks.

But when at least four gunmen strolled into the busy Westgate shopping mall on September 21, 2013,

it was civilians, ordinary shoppers that were the victims.

It was a normal Saturday lunchtime.

The Westgate shopping mall behind me was packed, hundreds of people from different countries all over the world,

browsing in the shops, and then suddenly at 12.30 gunfire and explosions, its grenades were thrown.

I was right in front of the steps, and I could see the shoppers who were coming down with the bags,

to be shopping bags, and people just being shot right in front of me, and all dropping dead there, right in front of me.

And I thought, that's it, I wonder if I'm going to come out of this alive.

You get a sense that things are really tense here.

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