Fire at Kenya School Kills 17 Boys

A fire ripped through a boarding school in central Kenya.

The blaze occurred at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri, a primary boarding school for young students.

Police said 17 boys had died and 14 were injured, though 70 remained unaccounted for according to Kenya's vice president.

Rigathi Gachagua added, however, that some may have been taken home by their parents in the night.

Officials say the boys were aged between 9 and 13-years-old and the dormitory housed 156 students.

Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki visited the school and said investigators were on the scene.

"We have lost children in a fire that burnt one dormitory that had our children here. Many children managed to jump out and get to safety, but we do not know how many were successful. The information we have is that there are others who are within the community, and with well-wishers who received the children. The government is urging anyone who took in any of these children to bring them here, in the hands of the government officers who are here, so that they can get medical help and counseling so that they do not get mental health problems."

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

President William Ruto said he had asked authorities to investigate and hold those responsible to account.

Vice President Rigathi Gachagua who visited the school said 70 pupils remained unaccounted for, although he added that some may have been taken home by their parents in the night.

Authorities have cordoned off the school and crime scene investigators have been sent there.

Kenya has a history of school fires, many of which have turned out to be arson. Nine students were killed in September 2017 in a fire at a school in the capital Nairobi that the government attributed to arson. In 2001, 58 schoolboys were killed in a dormitory fire at Kyanguli Secondary School outside Nairobi. In 2012, eight students were killed at a school in Homa Bay County in western Kenya.