No fewer than 17 children died after a fire ripped through their primary school dormitory overnight in central Kenya, police said Friday.
The fire started out after midnight at Nyeri County’s Hillside Endarasha Academy, according to authorities, and engulfed rooms where students were resting.
The primary school serves approximately 800 students, children aged five to twelve.
“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 AFP.
“The bodies recovered at the scene were burnt beyond recognition,” she said.
According to the police, the victims had an average age of roughly nine years old.
According to Onyango, several others were injured, 16 of them critically, and were taken to a local 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 has been launched.
President William Ruto expressed his condolences for those killed.
“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.
The Kenyan Red Cross reported that it was on the ground aiding a multi-agency response team.
It stated in a post on X that it was “providing psychosocial support services to the pupils, teachers, and affected families.”
There have been numerous school fires in Kenya and throughout East Africa. In 2016, a fire destroyed a girls’ high school in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, killing nine students.
In 2001, an arson attack on the dormitories of the Kyanguli Mixed Secondary School David Mutiso in Kenya’s southern Machakos county killed 67 students.
Two students were charged with murder, while the school’s headmaster and deputy were convicted of carelessness.
In 1994, a fire damaged the Shauritanga Secondary School for Girls in Tanzania’s northern Kilimanjaro area, killing 40 students and injuring 47 others.
