Kenya primary school fire: Dormitory destroyed, 17 pupils dead

At least 17 children died after a fire ripped through their primary school dormitory overnight in central Kenya, police said Friday.

The blaze in Nyeri County’s Hillside Endarasha Academy broke out at around midnight, police said, engulfing rooms where the children were sleeping.

The primary school caters to some 800 pupils, aged between roughly five and 12.

“There are 17 fatalities from this incident, and there are also others who were taken to the hospital with serious injuries,” national police spokesperson Resila Onyango told newsmen.

She stated that although the cause of the fire is still unknown, an investigation has begun.

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 in a post on X.
“This is devastating news.”

He said he had instructed officials to “thoroughly investigate this horrific incident” and promised that those responsible will be “held to account.”

The school is located around 170 kilometres (100 miles) north of the capital Nairobi, in Nyeri County.

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 multi-agency response team.

In a post on X, 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,” said Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

There have been numerous school fires in Kenya and across East Africa.

A fire at a girls’ high school in Nairobi’s Kibera neighborhood killed nine students in 2016.

An arson attack on the dormitory at the Kyanguli Mixed Secondary School David Mutiso in Kenya’s southern Machakos district claimed the lives of 67 students in 2001.

Two pupils were charged with murder, and the school’s headmaster and deputy were convicted of negligence.

In 1994, 40 schoolchildren were burnt alive and 47 injured in a fire that ravaged the Shauritanga Secondary School for Girls in the northern region of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.