At least 18 children died when a fire ripped through the dormitory of their boarding school north of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, police said Friday, and there were concerns that the death toll could rise.
The cause of the fire Thursday night is not yet known, but the deadly blaze at the Hillside Endarasha Primary School in Nyeri County brought renewed attention to safety concerns in Kenyan boarding schools.
There were 311 children at the boarding school at the time of the fire, with at least 70 still unaccounted for, said Rigathi Gachagua, Kenya’s deputy president.
“That does not mean that they have perished or they are injured,” he said, after arriving at the school.
Authorities reached the scene at around 3 a.m. to find the that the boys’ dormitory was on fire, said Pius Mugambi Murugu, the region’s acting commissioner.
By the morning, the fire had been contained, and authorities were working with the Kenyan Red Cross to reunite parents with their children.
Twenty-seven children have been hospitalized, some have been taken in by residents of the surrounding towns while waiting for their parents to arrive and others simply fled.
Sixteen children were burned beyond recognition, and one died while being taken to a hospital, said Resila Onyango, spokesperson for the national police. Many parents must now wait for DNA analysis to identify the victims. One child died at the hospital, Gachagua said later, bringing the total to 18.
“This is devastating news,” President William Ruto said on social media. “Those responsible will be held to account.” He declared three days of national mourning, during which flags will fly at half-mast.
Kenya has a legacy of boarding schools dating to the country’s colonial period, when they were one of the few options for older students to continue their education. The schools are now more widespread and available to a broader range of students.
But there have been long-running concerns about the safety of boarding schools in Kenya. A 2020 audit found that most schools were ill-prepared for a fire emergency, lacking working extinguishers and alarms.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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