{"id":669715,"date":"2026-05-28T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/669715\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T08:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:02:10","slug":"kenya-fire-kills-several-at-a-girls-boarding-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/669715\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya: Fire kills several at a girls&#8217; boarding school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At least 16\u00a0students were killed and\u00a073 injured at a girls&#8217; boarding school in <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/kenya\/t-19038344\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">central Kenya<\/a> early Thursday, police officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The Kenyan Red Cross said the\u00a0blaze broke out around 1 am at the Utumishi Girls&#8217; Academy Senior \u200cSchool in the Gilgil area, but was only reported only more than two hours later.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First responders, ambulance crew and our support personnel are currently on the ground,&#8221; a spokesperson for the Red Cross told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of the fire was not immediately known.<\/p>\n<p>Frantic parents gather outside school<\/p>\n<p>Authorities have confirmed that the fire has been contained.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a distressing and saddening situation,&#8221; county police official Masoud Mwinyi said addressing \u200bdistraught parents outside the school, according to media reports.<\/p>\n<p>Mwinyi told \u2060reporters that around 50 officers were searching the areas around the school for students who may have fled when the blaze broke out.<\/p>\n<p>History of school fires<\/p>\n<p>School fires are relatively common in Kenya where electrical faults and arson have contributed to past tragedies.\u00a0Experts say many of the fires were started by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions.<\/p>\n<p>\tIn 2001, 67 students died in a dormitory fire in Machakos County<br \/>\n\tIn 2017, 10 students died in a school fire in the capital Nairobi for which one student was charged with murder<br \/>\n\tIn 2018, more \u200cthan \u200b60 cases of arson in public secondary schools were recorded<br \/>\n\tIn 2024, 21 students burned to death <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/kenya-officials-revise-up-death-toll-in-school-fire\/a-70163113\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in a school fire in central Kenya<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This breaking news story will be updated with more details.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least 16\u00a0students were killed and\u00a073 injured at a girls&#8217; boarding school in central Kenya early Thursday, police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-669715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}