Kenya School Fire Horror Deepens as 8 Students Held Over Deadly Dorm Blaze

(Kenyan police detectives stand next to the bodies of victims. Photo by Punch News)

Kenyan authorities announced on Friday that eight students have been taken into custody in connection with a suspected arson attack at a girls’ school that claimed the lives of 16 children and left 79 others requiring hospital treatment.

The fire broke out in the early morning hours of Thursday at Utumishi Girls Academy in Nakuru County, roughly 120 kilometres north of Nairobi.

The blaze severely damaged the upper floor of a two-storey dormitory building that contained 12 cubicles and 135 bunk beds accommodating 135 students.

The country’s director of criminal investigations stated that preliminary findings had identified the eight students as persons of interest in the planning and execution of the attack.

Investigators have been conducting thorough interviews with students and staff, and have also reviewed CCTV footage and other forensic evidence, though the exact cause of the fire has yet to be officially confirmed.

The school has ties to Kenya’s National Police Service, with most of its pupils being children of police officers.

All 16 victims’ bodies have been recovered and taken to the mortuary, where identification is ongoing. Grieving parents had flocked to the school on Thursday, with many still not knowing the fate of their children by nightfall.

Devastating school fires are not new to Kenya, where boarding schools are widespread a legacy of colonial-era missionary and British influence.

Students have been implicated in deliberately starting such fires on several occasions in the past.

A 2001 dormitory fire killed 67 pupils, and as recently as 2024, a fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy took the lives of 21 boys, prompting government pledges of safety audits and prosecutions though the follow-through on those promises remains unclear.

Kenya’s education minister noted on Thursday that around 350 schools have been shut down since 2024 for failing to meet safety standards.