Police in Kenya have been ordered to investigate the circumstances leading to a deadly fire at a boarding school that left at least 18 pupils with an average age of nine dead.
The chief prosecutor said in a statement that investigators should “assess whether this tragedy was the result of negligence and/or recklessness”.
The cause of the fire at the boys’ dormitory at Hillside Endarasha Academy is still unknown and 50 students are still missing.
Identification of the bodies is expected to take place on Monday.
Director of Public Prosecutions Renson Ingonga said the tragedy “brings back bad memories of other similar school fires” which repeatedly showed negligence and failure to comply with safety standards.
He added that anyone found guilty would be promptly brought to trial in accordance with due criminal procedure. in a statement about X.
Kenya National Commission for Gender Equality and Justice said in a statement that initial reports of overcrowding in dormitories were “deeply worrying”.
The fire broke out at a dormitory housing 156 boys in a remote area of Nyeri County at around 11pm local time on Thursday. Firefighters were delayed by bad roads, but people living nearby rushed to the boys’ rescue.
“This is a tragedy beyond our imagination,” government spokesman Isaac Mwaura said at the school on Saturday. “It is truly a tragedy for the country to lose such a large number of young and promising Kenyans. Our hearts are heavy.”
About 50 children remain missing – some are believed to have fled into local communities or been picked up by their parents without the school knowing.
Mr Mwaura said on Saturday that more than 20 children had now been found, after 70 were initially reported missing on Friday. He urged the media not to “jump to conclusions” as DNA testing would take days.
On Saturday, crime scene investigators and government pathologists sealed off the site for analysis. Identification of the bodies will not take place until Monday at a hospital, another official told reporters.
“Some bodies were burned beyond recovery,” the official said.
That means parents desperate for news may have to wait another two days to learn their child’s fate.
President William Ruto has declared three days of national mourning, starting on Monday.
School fires are common in boarding schools in Kenya, where safety standards are a concern.
In 2022, a dormitory in western Kenya was set on fire, after which several students were arrested on suspicion of arson.
In 2017, 10 students were killed in a fire at Moi Girls High School in the capital Nairobi.
At least 67 students were killed in Machakos County, southeast of Nairobi, in Kenya’s deadliest school fire in more than 20 years.
ONE report released four years ago Many secondary schools in Kenya are ill-prepared to deal with fires and do not comply with government safety standards, it warned.
The state auditor general’s report revealed that many schools lack proper equipment to deal with fires and are not built to required safety standards.
