Eight girls arrested for burning down their school as fire tragically kills 16

Police have arrested eight female students on suspicion of planning and executing an arson attack after a fire killed 16 and left dozens more injured at a girls boarding school

Eight students have been arrested for their suspected involvement in an arson attack on a girls’ boarding school that left 16 dead and injured a further 79.

The eight girls were arrested on Friday (May 29), after the fire ripped through a sleeping dormitory at Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in Gilgil, Kenya. The burned dorm reportedly housed 135 students, a figure which has prompted an investigation into alleged overcrowding.

According to the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), police have identified the group as having potentially planned and then started the fire that broke out in the early hours of Thursday morning.

All eight girls remain in police custody while authorities continue with their investigations.

Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary, Julius Ogamba, said that teachers at the school had allegedly been warned about the plans to start a fire but had failed to take action.

Ogamba also took aim at the school’s staff for what he sees as a total disregard of safety regulations, citing the overcrowded dormitories and an allegedly locked emergency exit as contributing to the tragically high number of deaths.

In response, the Kenyan government has since dissolved the school’s board of management and pledged legal and disciplinary action against any and all staff members found to have neglected their responsibilities, according to Africa News.

The fire is said to have broken out at around 1am and was reported at approximately 3.30am on Thursday, according to the Kenya Red Cross. In a statement, Kenya Red Cross said: “Following a fire incident reported at around 3:30am at Utumishi Girls Academy in Nakuru County, Kenya Red Cross responded to support the ongoing emergency response.

“Our first responders, @EMS_Kenya ambulance crew and our psychosocial support personnel are currently on the ground supporting affected students alongside other responders and relevant authorities.”

School fires have been a persistent challenge in Kenya, with studies linking many incidents to student unrest over strict disciplinary measures and poor living conditions in boarding schools.

In 2024, a fire at a boarding primary school in Kenya’s Nyeri County killed 21 students, and worryingly investigators never were not able to trace its cause.

Kenya’s deadliest school fire in recent history occurred in 2001 at Kyanguli Secondary School near Nairobi, where 67 boys died in a dorm blaze that cops at the time similarly attributed to arson.

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