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07-09-2024
NAIROBI: At least 17 pupils have died after a dormitory at a boarding school in central Kenya caught fire on Thursday night, police said.
There are fears the death toll could rise as more than a dozen others have been taken to hospital with severe burns.
The cause of the fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy, a primary school, in Nyeri county is not yet known.
President William Ruto called the fire “horrific” and “devastating”, and has ordered an investigation.
“Those responsible will be held to account,” Ruto wrote on social media.
A team of investigators has been deployed to the school, police said.
More than 150 pupils were in the dormitory when it caught fire at around midnight local time, police chief Pius Murugu said.
The blaze spread very fast as most of the buildings in the school were made of timber, according to a journalist from network Citizen TV.
Police spokesperson Resila Onyango told media that bodies recovered were “burnt beyond recognition”.
“More bodies are likely to be recovered once (the) scene is fully processed,” she added.
The Kenya Red Cross said it was providing trauma counselling services to the pupils, teachers and affected families, and had set up a tracing desk at the school.
Hillside Endarasha Academy is a private primary school, with more than 800 pupils mostly between five and 12 years old, located near Nyeri town – 150km (93 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi.
School fires are relatively common in Kenyan boarding schools.
In 2017, 10 students died in an arson attack at Moi Girls High School in the capital Nairobi.
At least 67 students died in Machakos County, south-east of Nairobi, in the deadliest Kenyan school arson that took place more than 20 years ago.
The fire started around midnight in a dorm housing 156 boys, reporter say.
Speaking to media this morning, she says after seeing the fire, “neighbors rushed to the school” to help put it out.
It is still a matter of piecing together information but parents have gone to the school to look for their children.
Most people would have found out about the fire from the media, she says and on how it started, Soy adds that there are no theories yet. Some witnesses have said by the time they woke up, their dormitory was “engulfed”.
School fires are not uncommon for Kenya. Repeated incidents have taken place for more than 30 years.
In 2022, a dormitory in western Kenya burnt down, with several students being arrested on suspicion of arson and the year before there was a spike in the number of arson attacks on boarding schools.
In 2017, 10 students died in an arson attack at Moi Girls High School in the capital Nairobi.
At least 67 students died in Machakos county, south-east of Nairobi, in the deadliest Kenyan school arson that took place more than 20 years ago.
The Ministry of Education says some of the reasons behind the attacks include drug abuse, poor teacher-student relations, overcrowding and poor counselling services.
Some students have also complained about poor school conditions, with others citing tough exams for their defiance. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
