Kenya school fire leaves at least 17 pupils dead and more injured, police say

At least 17 pupils have died after a dormitory at a boarding school in central Kenya caught fire on Thursday night, police said.

There are fears the death toll could rise as more than a dozen others have been taken to hospital with severe burns.

The cause of the fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy, a primary school, in Nyeri county is not yet known.

President William Ruto called the fire “horrific” and “devastating”, and has ordered an investigation.

“Those responsible will be held to account,” Mr Ruto wrote on social media.

A team of investigators has been deployed to the school, police said.

More than 150 pupils were in the dormitory when it caught fire at around midnight local time, police chief Pius Murugu said.

The blaze spread very fast as most of the buildings in the school were made of timber, according to a journalist from network Citizen TV.

Police spokesperson Resila Onyango told the AFP news agency that bodies recovered were “burnt beyond recognition”.

“More bodies are likely to be recovered once (the) scene is fully processed,” she added.

The Kenya Red Cross said it was providing trauma counselling services to the pupils, teachers and affected families, and had set up a tracing desk at the school.

Hillside Endarasha Academy is a private primary school, with more than 800 pupils mostly between five and 12 years old, located near Nyeri town – 150km (93 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi.

School fires are relatively common in Kenyan boarding schools.

In 2017, 10 students died in an arson attack at Moi Girls High School in the capital Nairobi.

At least 67 students died in Machakos County, south-east of Nairobi, in the deadliest Kenyan school arson that took place more than 20 years ago.