At least 70 hostages have been killed in Thursday’s attack by Islamist militants on a university campus in Kenya, the BBC reported, citing officials.

According to Kenyan authorities, at least 79 were injured while more than 500 students were rescued from the Garissa University College campus.

Five gunmen attacked the campus in eastern Kenya early on Thursday, clashing with guards, storming their way into dormitories, singling out non-Muslims and taking them hostage.

According to police, students said the gunmen separated Christians from Muslims and were holding the hostages in a single dormitory.

Kenya Interior Minster Joseph Nkaiserry said four of the attackers had been killed, and security operations were still ongoing.

Al- Shabaab, a Somalia-based militant group, has claimed responsibility for the attack. In 2013, al-Shabaab launched an attack on a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi that left 67 people dead.

The Associated Press reported Kenyan police were offering a USD 220,000 reward for Mohammed Mohamud, whom they believe is the mastermind of the attack. He was a religious teacher in Garissa during the 1990s in a hard-line madrassa, delivering pro-jihadi sermons. 

An overnight curfew has been issued in parts of Kenya following the attack.

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