The death toll from a devastating fire at a primary school dormitory in semi-rural central Kenya has risen to 21, the Kenyan government said on Saturday.
Prosecutors said they had instructed police to investigate whether the tragedy was caused by negligence or recklessness, and vowed that anyone found guilty would be brought to justice.
A dormitory at a primary school in Nyeri County was engulfed in flames around midnight on Thursday while over 150 boys aged between nine and 13 were sleeping.
Government spokesman Isaac Mwaura said a total of 19 bodies were recovered at the scene, with two more people dying in hospital.
Of the 156 male students who were in the dormitory at the time, the whereabouts of 139 have now been identified and are either at home or in hospital.
“This is a disaster beyond our imagination,” Mwaura told a news conference at the scene.
“The loss of so many young and promising Kenyans is truly tragic for the nation. We are heartbroken.”
The cause of the fire is still unknown, but homicide investigators and forensic experts are at the school, which is off-limits to media.
The victim’s charred body – which police said was too burnt to be identified – was found inside the dormitory, where the corrugated iron roof has now completely collapsed, leaving only blackened exterior walls.
The government’s chief pathologist, Johansen Oduor, said the autopsy would begin on Tuesday.
Prosecutor-general Renson Ingonga has ordered police to carry out a thorough investigation to determine the circumstances that led to the fire and “assess whether this tragedy was caused by the negligence or recklessness of those responsible,” the office said in a statement.
“Anyone found responsible for the fire accident shall be promptly brought to due process of a criminal trial.”
The fire highlights school safety issues in Kenya, where there have been a number of similar disasters over the past few years.
Kenya’s National Gender Equality Commission said initial reports found the dormitories “overcrowded and in violation of safety standards.”
Prime Minister Ruto declared three days of national mourning starting on Monday following what he described as an “unfathomable tragedy”.
Pope Francis said he was “deeply saddened” by the loss of young lives and expressed his “heartfelt sympathy for all those suffering the effects of this disaster, in particular the injured and their grieving families.”
As many families anxiously waited for news of their loved ones, one mother at the school shouted angrily: “We don’t want food donations. We want our children.”
The Kenya Red Cross has set up white tents in a field outside the school gates and is offering psychological counselling sessions to traumatised children and their relatives.
Muchai Kihara, 56, said he was lucky to find his 12-year-old son, Steven Gachingi, alive when he rushed to the school at about 1am on Friday.
“I can’t imagine what he went through. I’m glad he’s alive but he had a wound on the back of his head and smoke had hurt his eye,” he told AFP.
“I just want him to get counselling now so we can see if his life can get back on track.”
Disasters have hit schools in Kenya and other parts of East Africa in recent years.
In 2016, a fire broke out at a girls’ high school in Nairobi’s vast slum area of Kibera, killing nine students.
In 2001, a dormitory at a secondary school in Machakos, south of Nairobi, was set on fire, killing 67 students.
Two students were charged with murder and the principal and deputy principal were found guilty of negligence.
In 1994, a fire broke out at a girls’ school in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania, killing 40 children and injuring 47.
In 2022, a fire broke out at a school for the blind in eastern Uganda. Government ministers said at the time that 11 students were trapped in their dorm rooms and died because the building had been burglar-proofed.
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