At least 17 children died after a fire ripped through their school dormitory overnight in central Kenya, police said yesterday.
The blaze in Nyeri County’s Hillside Endarasha Academy broke out at about midnight, police said, engulfing rooms where the children were sleeping.
The primary school caters to about 800 pupils, aged between five and 12.
Photo: AP
“There are 17 fatalities from this incident and there are also others who were taken to hospital with serious injuries,” national police spokesperson Resila Onyango said. “The bodies recovered at the scene were burnt beyond recognition.”
Police said the average age of the victims was about nine years old.
Several others were injured, Onyango said, 16 of them seriously, and had been rushed to a nearby hospital.
“More bodies are likely to be recovered once [the] scene is fully processed,” she said.
The cause of the fire remains unknown, she said, but an investigation had been launched.
Kenyan President William Ruto expressed his condolences.
“Our thoughts are with the families of the children who have lost their lives in the fire tragedy,” he said on social media. “This is devastating news.”
He said he had instructed officials to “thoroughly investigate this horrific incident,” and promised that those responsible would be “held to account.”
The school is about 170km north of the capital, Nairobi.
Local media showed relatives gathering outside the school building, anxiously waiting in the early morning mist for updates on their children.
Kenya’s Citizen TV showed images of what appeared to be the aftermath of the blaze, with blackened corrugated iron roofing that had collapsed in on itself.
The Kenyan Red Cross said it was on the ground assisting a response team.
In a post on social media, it said it was “providing psychosocial support services to the pupils, teachers and affected families.”
“Heartbreaking news from Kenya as a school fire has caused devastation. Our thoughts are with all affected,” International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies secretary-general Jagan Chapagain said.
There have been numerous school fires in Kenya and across east Africa.
In 2016, nine students were killed by a fire at a girls’ high school in the Kibera neighborhood of Nairobi.
In 2001, 67 pupils were killed by an arson attack on their dormitory at the Kyanguli Mixed Secondary School David Mutiso in Kenya’s southern Machakos District.
Two pupils were charged with the murder, and the headmaster and deputy of the school were convicted of negligence.
In 1994, 40 children were burned alive and 47 injured in a fire that ravaged the Shauritanga Secondary School for Girls in the northern region of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
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