Children aged five to 12 killed in Kenya boarding school fire

At least 17 pupils aged five to 12  were killed in a fire accident at a boarding school dormitory on Thursday in Kenya, the Ministry of Education has said. More than 150 pupils were in the dormitory when it caught fire at around midnight local time.

The school caters for 800 children. According to police spokeswoman Resila Onyango, the cause of the fire on Thursday night was being investigated, she added that “necessary action” would be taken.

“The bodies recovered at the scene were burnt beyond recognition,” Onyango told the AFP news agency. In a broadcast on Kenya’s Hot 96 FM radio, Onyango said a government team is on the ground to assess the extent of the damage.

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Kenya’s President William Ruto called the news “devastating” and said action would be taken against those responsible.’

“I instruct relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate this horrific incident. Those responsible will be held to account,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

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Ruto’s deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, urged school administrators to ensure that safety guidelines recommended by the Ministry of Education for boarding schools are being followed.

A team of investigators, including forensics experts, were deployed to the school, police said. The blaze spread very fast as most of the buildings in the school were made of timber, according to a journalist from Citizen TV, a local TV station.

The death toll could rise, police warned on Friday, following the disaster at Hillside Endarasha Primary School in Nyeri county, as the survivors are being treated in hospitals.

“More bodies are likely to be recovered once (the) scene is fully processed,” she added. “The county government has done all it can to salvage the situation,” Nyeri County Governor Mutahi Kahiga said.

Firefighters put out the fire with the help of people living nearby, who were the first to respond.

Local official Samson Mwangi Mwema told the BBC the rescue operation was difficult, saying: “We found the dormitory had caught fire, we tried to rescue – we found some children under the bed and we were able to rescue them.”

The school is located about 170km (106 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi. School fires are common in Kenyan boarding schools, where many students stay because parents believe it gives them more time to study and precludes long commutes.

In 2016, nine students were killed by a fire at a girls’ high school in the Kibera neighbourhood of Nairobi. A year later, 10 high school students died in a school fire in Nairobi. In 2001, 58 pupils were killed in a dormitory fire at Kyanguli Secondary School outside Nairobi.