Ali Salim Gichunge, one of the terrorists who was killed during the Riverside attack, was born to Abdala Salim, a KDF soldier and Sakina Mariam, who lives in Isiolo County.
He was enrolled at Hekima Primary School where he studied from nursery to Standard Six before moving to Isiolo Barracks for the rest of his elementary education. When he sat for his KCPE examination in 2007, he attained 335 marks.
Gichunge left Isiolo home in 2015 after completing his secondary school education at Thuura Boys in Meru in 2011 - after two short stints at Kibirichia Boys and Muthambi Boys. He attained a C+ grade.
He left Kibirichia Boys claiming he could not bear the cold and Muthambi Boys because saying he had been bullied by older boys.
After high school, he studied IT and was employed by a local hotel to run its cyber cafe business. It was at that job that he was exposed to online religious courses and left the town.
“After a few months, he called me to say he was heading to Meru for a job interview,” his sister Amina Shariff told Nation.
A few hours after Gichunge left Isiolo, officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations raided the cybercafé on terror-related suspicions and confiscated all the computers.
His sister also told reporters that the family had given up searching for him after years of futile efforts.
“I went home for the burial of a relative just a week ago, and my mother asked whether I had seen him,” she recalled.
She continued, “I told her that we should forget about him as death would let us know where he is.”
Gichunge is reported to have visited Nyeri’s Majengo slums during the December holiday to link up with other Somalia-trained youths before the attack on Tuesday.
He is believed to have used the names Farouk Juma and Idriss in Nyeri.
