The death of 16 students in a fire on 28th May has brought back the question of the safety of boarding schools in Kenya.

The tragedy happened at Utumishi Girls Academy in the town of Utumishi, which is located about 120km (77 miles) north-west of the capital city of Nairobi, and in recent years has come after a series of fatal fires at boarding schools.

Authorities are yet to establish the cause of the fire, but parents of the pupils and Kenyans on social media have been raising the question of how adequately the boarding schools are prepared for fires and if the dormitories are safe for the pupils.

Some parents were still at the scene about 12 hours after the fire, waiting for news of their children.

“Don’t you understand? I just want to know if she is dead or alive!” one frustrated man told a police officer who was guarding the school building.

As well as the pupils who died on Thursday, 79 others were injured, but most of those have been released from hospital. During the time of the fire, there were over 800 children in the school.

Kenya has had a long history of school fires – just two years ago at least 21 people died in a dormitory fire in central Kenya.

A large number of fires reported in the boarding schools have occurred as a result of arson, with disgruntled pupils, who are angry at the discipline and living conditions, being blamed for fires that are actually a result of accidents, and others.

High casualties have also been attributed to the lack of safety measures, including keeping exits free and windows unlocked, and overcrowding in dormitories.

One parent, who had been sitting outside Utumishi on Thursday, told the BBC they had placed their children in this school and they did not know the difference between life and death.

A friend notified her of the fire at the school where her 14-year-old daughter is studying, and that made her feel “traumatised”, Roselyn Rakamba said.

Rakamba rushed there, but as she was on her way, her daughter got in touch to say she was safe.

“I am happy now, but not really because some of the parents have lost their children and in this school we are like a family,” Rakamba said.

The fire occurred at about 01:00 local time (22:00 GMT Wednesday) and swept over a dormitory block which housed some 220 pupils, the police said.

The response teams managed to put out the fire by about 03:00.

Some students who had run away to nearby areas during the chaos were still being tracked, police commander Masoud Mwinyi said Thursday morning.

Nderitu, whose cousin is one of the school’s pupils, said her family members who arrived at the scene were confused and fearful. 

“Upon our arrival at the school, they told us to line up. Most were in great fear as they had heard of some children being killed and others injured and taken to hospital.”

Some students got hurt when they jumped from the upper level of the dormitory to escape, she said.

“Those on the upper levels had to jump from the building, hence their injuries.”

Nderitu said her cousin did not perish in the fire but had a broken leg. She said she found her, and she was OK, but broke her leg.

“I want to say to the people of Kenya, as we keep count of the 16 that we have identified as having passed away, as a family, stand with us in prayer, in support.”

He urged all to wait and not speculate.

In 2001, 67 students were killed in one of the deadliest school fires in Kenya, which took place in the south-east of the country in Machakos County.

In 2024, education ministry officials conducted an assessment of the compliance of the schools to safety standards and reported that most of them “had dormitories with grills on the windows, single exits and doors that opened inwards, thereby reducing the safety of the school occupants”.

In the schools, too, congestion was found to be common. After the inspection, the ministry reported that it had shut down “348 schools immediately”.

In November 2021, the Ministry of Education issued a response to a parliamentary committee which had requested more information on school arson and revealed that there were 126 such cases between January and November 2020.

The Reuters news agency quotes research from 2018 saying that 60 cases of arson were recorded in that year.