DHAKA: Renowned Ghanaian poet and statesman Kofi Awoonor is among the 68 people confirmed dead so far in an attack by Somali fighters on a Nairobi shopping mall, Ghana’s president has said.

Awoonor, 78, was killed and his son wounded at the Westgate mall, Ghana’s Deputy Information Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu said. He added that Awoonor’s son has been discharged from the hospital.

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 separated 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 told the AFP news agency.

“The son was shot while he was inside the mall. We don’t know at what point the professor was shot.”

Now, he embraces inevitability and faces it with grace and peace:

And death, when he comes

to the door with his own

inimitable calling card

shall find a homestead

resurrected with laughter and dance

and the festival of the meat

of the young lamb and the red porridge

of the new corn

Source: al-jazeera
BDST: 1350 HRS, SEP 23, 2013
SR/BSK