Gunmen take students hostage in northeast Kenya University.

Gunmen have taken students hostage and killed four people at a university in north-eastern Kenya, near the Somali border, aid workers and police say.
About 30 wounded after gunmen stormed Garissa University College. Troops have surrounded the campus and are engaging the attackers.

Witnesses spoke of the gunmen firing indiscriminately and there are fears the casualty toll could rise.

Islamist al-Shabab militants from Somalia have regularly targeted Kenya.
Garissa and other border areas have often been attacked.Some five masked gunmen are said to have stormed the university.
A policeman at the scene told Reuters news agency that some students had been taken hostage.

"We can't tell how many but they are many since the college was in session," the unnamed policeman is quoted as saying.

The Kenyan Red Cross said about 50 students had been "safely freed", but an unknown number were still being held.
It urged people to stay away from the area. The statement did not confirm that hostages had been taken.

Two guards were confirmed killed at the main university gate, with two policemen and a student among the injured. But eyewitnesses spoke of many casualties inside the building.

I can hear gunfire from inside the campus. Ambulances are rushing in and out with the wounded.

One teacher told me some students managed to run away from the gunfire, and came to her house early in the morning to seek shelter.

But a huge crowd has gathered outside the house, mostly of people who are worried that friends and relatives may be still trapped inside.

Some of them are trying to enter the campus but the security forces are holding them back. Troops have also surrounded the main hospital, restricting public access to it as medical staff battle to cope with the wounded.

Most shops in Garissa are shut, and people are staying at home.

The gunmen reportedly ordered students to lie down on the floor, but at least 27 are known to have escaped and are at a military facility.

"It was horrible, there was shooting everywhere," student Augustine Alanga said