A man walks at a cordoned off area in the courtyard of the Hillside Endarasha Primary school following a fire, in Nyeri county, 170 km north of the capital Nairobi, Kenya, 06 September 2024. The Kenyan Ministry of Education confirmed that 17 pupils have died following the fire that broke out early on 06 September in the boys' dormitory at the primary school. EPA-EFE/STRINGER Citizen Television said the fire had burnt the victims beyond recognition. Its footage from the scene showed collapsed iron-sheet roofing and charred metal storage boxes on top of double-decker beds in the dormitory.
The blaze occurred at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri, a primary boarding school for young students.
"We have lost 17 pupils in the fire incident while 14 are injured," police spokesperson Resila Onyango said. "Our team is at the scene at the moment."
Government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura said the boys were in grades 4 to 8, putting their ages at about 9 to 13-years-old. He said in a statement the dormitory housed 156 students.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.
President William Ruto said he had told authorities to investigate what he called the "horrific incident" and said those responsible would be held to account.
Authorities have cordoned off the school, the Kenya Red Cross said on X. Calls by Reuters to the school's main phone line went unanswered.
Kenya has a history of school fires, many of which have turned out to be arson.
Nine students were killed in Sept 2017 in a fire at a school in the capital Nairobi that the government attributed to arson.
In 2001, 58 schoolboys were killed in a dormitory fire at Kyanguli Secondary School outside Nairobi. In 2012, eight students were killed at a school in Homa Bay County in western Kenya.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa, Humphrey Malalo and Sonia Rao; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Christina Fincher and Angus MacSwan)