A fire in a primary school dormitory in Kenya killed seventeen students on the night of Thursday 5 to Friday 6 September. According to police, several other people were injured, 16 of them seriously.
The fire at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County broke out around midnight. Authorities, who feared an increase in the number of victims on Friday morning, said the average age of the victims was around nine years old. The school, which serves about 800 pupils aged between five and 12, is located nearly 170 kilometres north of the capital, Nairobi, in the centre of the country. An investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the fire.
Evoking a “devastating news”President William Ruto expressed his condolences. “Our thoughts are with the families of the children who lost their lives” on this “tragedy”He said in a message on XM Ruto added that he had asked officials to “conduct a thorough investigation into this horrific event” and promised that those responsible would be “responsibility”.
For its part, the Kenya Red Cross indicated that it had deployed teams on the ground to provide “Psychosocial support services for affected students, teachers and families”.
Frequent fires
There have been many school fires in Kenya and across East Africa in the past. In 2016, nine students died in a fire at a girls’ secondary school in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum.
In 2001, 67 students were killed in an arson attack in their dormitory at a secondary school in Machakos district in southern Kenya. Two students were charged with the murder and the school’s principal and assistant were found guilty of negligence.
In 1994, 40 schoolchildren were burned to death and 47 injured in a fire that devastated a girls’ secondary school in the Kilimanjaro region of neighbouring northern Tanzania.
