ANC shocked, sends Kenya condolences after 147 killed in university 'atrocity'

The ANC has expressed its shock at the massacre of 147 Christian students at a university in Kenya.

"We send our deepest condolences to the families that are suffering at the hands of those who planned and committed these atrocious acts,"  national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said according to eNCA.

On Thursday masked gunmen, hurling grenades and firing automatic rifles, stormed the university in the northeastern town of Garissa as students were sleeping.

Officials said at least 147 students were killed in the attack, which was claimed by Somalia's Shebab Islamistic group and lasted 13 hours.

It was the worst attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi by Al-Qaeda, when 213 people were killed by a huge truck bomb.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called for closer ties with Kenya following the attack, saying the killings showed "the need to reinforce the anti-terror cooperation between the two countries, with the aim to eliminate this menace from the region."

AU chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Friday said the killings were "cowardly", and praised Kenya for "its outstanding contribution to the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the huge sacrifices made towards stabilising that country."

Earlier Nigeria's outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan also condemned the attack.

"Such atrocious, despicable and barbaric acts of violence ought to have no place in any civilised society."

Nigeria, with the support of troops from Chad, Cameroon and Niger, is battling an insurgency by Boko Haram Islamists which has claimed at least 13,000 lives since it began in northeast Nigeria in 2009.

The United States pledged to stand by Kenya following the attack.

"The United States is providing assistance to the Kenyan government, and we will continue to partner with them as well as with others in the region to take on the terrorist group al-Shebab," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

"The US condemns in the strongest terms today's terrorist attack against the innocent men and women of Garissa University College in Kenya," a White House statement said.