Eight schoolgirls in Kenya have been confirmed dead in a fire outbreak at their boarding school dormitory in Nairobi on Saturday.
Officials said 10 more have been hospitalized and have not yet identified the cause of the fire.
The government has now ordered the school, Moi Girls School to be closed for two weeks to make way for investigations.
The education minister Fred Matiangi told reporters after visiting the school that “A fire broke out at the school at 2:00am in the morning in one of the dormitories,” said Matiangi. He said the school, which has nearly 1,200 students, is “one of our top schools in the country and… (one) that we are very proud of.”
A 16-year-old schoolgirl, Daniella Maina was quoted by Reuters as saying “We were sleeping and a girl woke us up and said that our hostel was burning. We were helped to safety by some teachers.”
Another school girl who was treated told local media “There was thick smoke that made me faint. But I quickly came to my senses and realised my jumper had caught fire. I put it out and managed to escape.”
President Uhuru Kenyatta in a message of condolence to the families of students who died in the fire said “The young women touched by this tragedy are the best of us; diligent, committed to learning, and prepared to make a difference in the life of the country they love.”
This is not the first time such a disaster has been recorded in Kenya with 58 schoolboys dieing in a similar dormitory fire in 2001 at Kyanguli Secondary School outside Nairobi. Another eight students died at a school in Homa Bay County in western Kenya in 2012.
Source: Africafeeds.com
