Anguished parents wait for news after Kenya school fire kills 17

Families of children at a Kenyan primary school where a dormitory blaze killed 17 boys were facing an anguished wait Saturday for news of their missing loved ones.

Kenya's Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua told reporters at the scene of the tragedy on Friday that 70 youngsters were still unaccounted for.

The fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy in the central Nyeri county broke out around midnight Thursday, engulfing a dormitory where more than 150 boys were sleeping.

President William Ruto declared three days of national mourning starting from Monday after what he described as an "unfathomable tragedy".

He said 17 children aged between nine and 13 had lost their lives, while 14 had sustained injuries and were being treated in hospital.

"I pledge that the difficult questions that have been asked such as how this tragedy occurred and why the response was not timely will be answered; fully, frankly, and without fear or favour," Ruto said a statement.

"All relevant persons and bodies will be held to account, and we shall do all that is required to ensure that, as far as possible, we shall never again find ourselves in the grips of such a tragedy."

Gachagua told reporters there were still 70 children unaccounted for, but said it did not mean they were dead or injured, but may have been taken by relatives or found shelter in the community.

He described the scene as "gory" and said painstaking investigative work using DNA would be required to help identify the victims.

"The bodies recovered at the scene were burnt beyond recognition," national police spokesperson Resila Onyango told AFP.

- 'He can't be dead' -

On Friday, tensions were running high among families gathered at the school as they anxiously awaited news of the missing.

Many broke down after officials took them to see the charred bodies in the destroyed dorm.

"Please look for my kid. He can't be dead. I want my child," one woman cried in distress as she left the school.

The cause of the inferno was not yet known but Kenya's National Gender and Equality Commission said initial reports indicated the dorm was "overcrowded, in violation of safety standards", and called for an immediate inquiry.

"We parents are in panic mode," said Timothy Kinuthia, who has been hunting for news of his 13-year-old boy.

The Kenyan Red Cross said it was on the ground assisting a multi-agency response team and providing psychosocial support.

AFP footage showed the blackened shell of the largely wooden-built dormitory, with its corrugated iron roof completely collapsed.

The destroyed building was sealed off by yellow police tape, with officers stationed at all access points.

The school, which caters to some 800 children, is located in a semi-rural area around 170 kilometres (100 miles) north of the capital Nairobi.

There have been numerous school fires in Kenya and across East Africa.

In 2016, nine students were killed by a fire at a girls' high school in the sprawling slum neighbourhood of Kibera in Nairobi.

In 2001, 67 pupils were killed in an arson attack on their dormitory at a secondary school Kenya's southern Machakos district.

Two pupils were charged with murder, and the headmaster and deputy of the school were convicted of negligence.

In 1994, 40 school children were burned alive and 47 injured in a fire that tore through a girls' school in Tanzania's Kilimanjaro region.

In 2022, a blaze ravaged a school for the blind in eastern Uganda. Eleven pupils died after they were trapped inside their shared bedroom because the building had been burglar-proofed, government ministers said at the time.