A YOUNG Australian architect who gave his expertise and time helping the disadvantaged people of Eastern Africa has been killed along with his pregnant partner during a militant massacre at a Kenyan shopping centre.
Tasmanian-born Ross Langdon and his wife Elif Yavuz were expecting their first child in weeks when they were gunned down by Islamist attackers at Nairobi's Westgate shopping centre on Saturday.
The director of an architectural firm with offices in both Melbourne and London, Mr Langdon spent much of his time working on projects in East Africa, including offering his pro bono services for an HIV-Aids hospital and launching a "rusty roof exchange" program aiming to improve domestic housing.
Mr Langdon, who was much-decorated in his field, was about to start work on a $35 million museum.
"Besides a personal loss for myself, this is a major global loss," Tasmanian-based friend and sculptor Peter Adams wrote on his personal website.
"This cannot be underestimated or glossed over by the political pundits who will label Ross and Elif and their unborn child as unfortunate casualties in the war on terror."
Meanwhile, tributes have flowed around the world for Mr Langdon - who held dual British citizenship - and his Dutch wife.
"They didn't want to know if the baby was a boy or a girl, so they had chose names for both sexes," wrote friend Lisa, saying she had met with them in Nairobi in the past week.
"I have no words right now."
Ms Yavuz held a PhD in public health policy at Harvard University and was a specialist on malaria, working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Kenya.
"Both had dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful world. Both had so much to offer," Mr Adams wrote of Mr Langdon and Ms Yavuz.
The pair are believed to have been aged in their early 30s.
An Australian lawyer in the shopping mall at the time it was attacked said there was confusion about what was going on during the incident.
"It sounded like scaffolding falling at first, I wasn't that concerned," Heidi Edwards, who works in the city for the Kenya Human Rights Commission, told the ABC.
"Then there was some panic going on and then another one (noise) in quick succession and then some gunshots."
She recalled how she and others found an unlocked staff access and hid in a stairwell until the gunfire stopped.
"There was no sirens which, for a Westerner was quite surprising - if that happened in Australia there would be sirens everywhere," she said.
"It was just confusion more than anything else."
Prime Minister Tony Abbott condemned the attack, which killed at least 69 and injured almost 200 others.
"That an Australian was among those killed in the attack is a terrible reminder that Australia is not immune from acts of terrorism around the world and that Al Qaeda-linked groups continue to present a serious global threat," he said in a statement.
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