At least 18 boys were killed and 27 others were taken to hospital after a fire broke out at a dormitory at a boarding school in central Kenya early on Friday.
Kenya's Vice President Ligathy Gachagua announced the death toll at the scene of the Hillside Endarasha Academy primary school in the town of Endarasha. The fire broke out around midnight and engulfed rooms where more than 150 children were sleeping.
Another 70 children remain unaccounted for, but some may have been taken home by their parents during the night, he added.
Nyeri County Commissioner Pius Murugu and the Ministry of Education reported that the dormitory where the fire broke out was housing over 150 boys aged between 10 and 14 years old.
A national police spokesman said: “The bodies recovered at the scene were so charred that they could not be identified. More bodies are likely to be recovered once the scene has been fully examined.”
Interior Minister Kitule Kindiki said some children had been evacuated to a house near the school. “Some of the children are alive and well, but of course they are traumatized and are in the hands of the people who evacuated them last night,” he said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear. Kenya's National Gender Equality Commission said initial reports indicated the dormitory was “overcrowded and in violation of safety standards” and called for an immediate investigation.
Kenyan President William Ruto said news of the fire was “devastating” and promised that whoever was responsible would be held to account.
Many anxious families waited outside the school gates to be reunited with their children. “There is very little information. We have heard that some children have fled, but they can't tell us where they have gone,” said Francis Wachira, 33, whose daughter is at the school. “The longer we stay here, the more our hope of finding them fades.”
“We are parents in a state of panic. We have been here since 5am and we have not heard anything,” Timothy Kinuthia, who was enquiring about his 13-year-old son, told AFP.
Kenya has seen a number of school fires, many of which have been determined to be arson. In September 2017, a fire broke out at a school in the capital, Nairobi, killing nine students, but the government blamed it on arson.
In 2001, 58 boys died in a dormitory fire at Kyanguri Secondary School, outside Nairobi, and in 2012, eight students died at a school in Homa Bay County, western Kenya.
A 2022 report by the country's auditor general said most public secondary schools were ill-prepared to deal with a fire disaster.
Gachagua asked It called for schools to implement safety measures set out by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and other agencies to prevent fires.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
