Elliot Prior, a four-year-old British boy, came to the rescue to his mother and sister during the Kenyan mall attack.
According to The Independent, Elliot was a witness to his mother being shot in the thigh. His response to the opposing Jihadist, “You’re a bad man, let us leave.”
The Jihadist gave young Elliot and his sister Amelie a pair of Mars bars and allowed the children and their mother to leave the shopping mall and the terrorist attack behind. Elliot’s mother Amber immediately grabbed her two children and another wounded 12-year-old boy whose mother had been murdered in the attack.
As the Prior family began to leave the Jihadist stopped them one more time and explained Jihadiss only wanted to kill other Kenyans and Americans. He then asked Amber to convert to Islam and said, “Please forgive me, we are not monsters.”
Elliot’s uncle Alex Coutts told The Sun, as reported by CBS News, “They had a lucky escape. … The terrorists said that if any kids were alive in the supermarket, they could leave. Amber made the decision to stand up and say yes." He added, “Elliot argued with them and called them bad men. He was very brave.”
The Kenyan government reported 62 people dead and 100 injured after three days of terrorism.
Patrick Oney is a graduate from Brigham Young University-Idaho with a bachelor's degree in political science and English. He currently works for Deseret News as a writer. Contact him at poney@deseretnews.com.