A fire at a Kenyan school dormitory kills at least 17 pupils and leaves 70 more missing.

A fire raced through a primary school dormitory in northern Kenya overnight, killing at least 17 young children and leaving 70 others missing, officials said Friday, leaving families waiting for news.

The fire at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County started after midnight, engulfing rooms where more than 150 pupils were resting.

According to police, the victims had an average age of roughly nine.”We still have 70 unaccounted children—that does not mean they have died or been injured… the word is that they are unaccounted for,” Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua told reporters on the scene. He stated that 27 youngsters were in the hospital.

Police had earlier reported the deaths of 17 youngsters, but Gachagua claimed the numbers had not been verified. Tensions were mounting when the family gathered at the school gates seeking news, and many burst into weeping and tears upon seeing bodies.” We parents are in panic mode,” said Timothy Kinuthia, who has been looking for word on his 13-year-old son.”We have been here since 5:00 am and we have been told nothing.”

The origin of the fire was unknown, but Kenya’s National Gender and Equality Commission stated preliminary investigations showed the hostel was “overcrowded, in violation of safety standards,” and asked for an immediate investigation.

The school, which reportedly served 800 children, is located in a semi-rural location some 170 kilometers (100 miles) north of the capital Nairobi. “The bodies recovered at the scene were burnt beyond recognition,” Resila Onyango, national police spokesperson, told AFP.

“More bodies are likely to be recovered once the scene is fully processed,” she said. Children ‘traumatised’. An AFP correspondent witnessed survivors being carried onto school buses while covered in blue blankets to keep warm. Speaking on the scene, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki stated that some people had ended up in nearby homes.

“There are some children who are alive and well, but they are traumatized, and they are in the hands of those who took them in last night,” Kindiki said, adding that authorities were still gathering information.

Elisabeth Nyambura, 35, said that her 13-year-old son had been found and taken home as she searched for one of his classmates. “All he told me was that he saw smoke and escaped out the window. “I’m just glad he’s alive,” she remarked. AFP film showed the dormitory’s dark shell, with its corrugated iron roof totally fallen.

“Horrific incident.”

President William Ruto, who is in Beijing for a China-Africa meeting, offered his condolences in a post on X. “Our thoughts are with the families of the children who have lost their lives in the fire tragedy,” the governor stated.

Ruto directed officials to “thoroughly investigate this horrific incident” and promised that anyone involved would be “held to account.”. The dormitory was cordoned off with yellow police tape, and officers were stationed at all entrance points. The Kenyan Red Cross said it was aiding a multi-agency response team and “providing psychosocial support services to the pupils, teachers, and affected families” on the ground.

There have been numerous school fires in Kenya and throughout East Africa. In 2016, a fire destroyed a girls’ high school in Nairobi’s enormous slum area of Kibera, killing nine students.

In 2001, 67 students were killed in an arson assault on their dormitories at Kyanguli Mixed Secondary School David Mutiso in Kenya’s southern Machakos county. Two students were charged with murder, while the school’s headmaster and deputy were convicted of carelessness.

In 1994, a fire damaged the Shauritanga Secondary School for Girls in Tanzania’s northern Kilimanjaro area, killing 40 students and injuring 47 others. In 2022, a fire damaged a blind school in Eastern Uganda. Eleven students perished after becoming trapped inside their shared bedroom due to the building’s burglar-proofing, according to government politicians at the time.