At least sixteen innocent students have been killed in a Kenyan school fire.
According to sources, local police confirmed on Thursday that a fire tore through a dormitory at a girls’ school in a town in Kenya’s Rift Valley overnight.
As reported by BBC, the Gilgil Police said an unknown number of students were also injured at Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in Gilgil in Nakuru County.
“It is a sad and distressing situation,” police commander Masoud Mwinyi said, speaking to parents and crowds outside the school.
More than 70 other students are being treated in the hospital after being injured, police added.
The cause of the fire was not known, and authorities are trying to account for all the students at Utumishi Girls Boarding School in the Gilgil area.
Kenya has a long history of school fires, with more than 60 cases of arson in public secondary schools recorded in 2018 alone, according to government data.
Many of the fires have been set by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions, researchers have found.
Masoud Mwinyi, a senior police commander, told reporters at the school that 50 officers were combing areas around the school for students who may have fled when the fire broke out.
“Of that shock and fear and anxiety, many people went out, and it was at night,” he said.
In 2024, a fire killed 21 students at a primary boarding school in nearby Nyeri County. The cause of that fire has not been conclusively established.
