Kenya school fire kills at least 17 children

At least 17 children died after a fire ripped through their primary school dormitory overnight in Africa.

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 hospital with serious injuries,” national police spokesperson Resila Onyango told AFP.

“The bodies recovered at the scene were burnt beyond recognition,” she said.

Police said the average age of the victims was around nine years old.

A fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy in central Kenya killed at least 17 children, with several others seriously injured, and an investigation into the cause is underway. Picture: CNN

Several others were injured, Onyango said, 16 of them seriously, and had been rushed to a nearby hospital.

“More bodies are likely to be recovered once (the) scene is fully processed,” she said.

She said the fire’s cause remains unknown, but an investigation had been launched.

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 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 blaze’s aftermath, with blackened corrugated iron roofing that had collapsed in on itself.

The Kenyan Red Cross said it was assisting a multi-agency response team.

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

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.

Other deadly blazes

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

In 2016, nine students were killed by a fire at a girls’ high school in the Kibera neighbourhood of Nairobi.

In 2001, 67 pupils were killed by an arson attack on their dormitory at the Kyanguli Mixed Secondary School David Mutiso in Kenya’s southern Machakos district.

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

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