Officials in Kenya have said that the fire outbreak at a school dormitory that killed 9 teenage girls was started deliberately.
Kenya’s education minister Fred Matiangi said on Monday that arson was to blame for the incident.
“Most of the investigations are done and I can tell you unequivocally – I have been briefed by the police – that it was not an accident,” Matiangi told a press conference in Nairobi.
He further said that “Police have assured us that there are very useful leads in the direction of specific suspects and we will know in due course who these suspects are,”
The government on Saturday ordered the school, Moi Girls School to be closed for two weeks to make way for investigations.
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.”
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
