Kenyan school – Relatives mourn the Utumishi Girls’ Academy fire in Nakuru County as Kenya reels from a wave of school blazes this year—dozens of incidents, dozens of deaths, and more than 100 temporary closures. Investigators are examining the circumstances around the latest
By the time mourners gathered for the victims of the Utumishi Girls’ Academy fire, the facts already felt unbearable. The tragedy happened on May 28. when 16 schoolgirls were burned alive after their dormitory at the academy in Nakuru County was set ablaze at night. Nine of their classmates are now under investigation.
For survivors, the horror is not abstract. Tasha. 15. said she only escaped after frantic friends battered down a door that had been locked from the outside—something she said was in contravention of fire regulations. At a mass for her lost friends, she admitted she never expected it to escalate. “I didn’t think they would go that far,” she said, as grief sat beside anger.
What happened next is part of why the wider crisis feels so hard to contain. Tasha told AFP there were rumours some girls were unhappy about conditions in the school, and were planning a strike. Psychologist Catherine Gachutha. ex-chair of Kenya’s Counselling and Psychological Association. offered a different lens: teenagers were usually not malicious. she said. but “not looking at the consequences.”.
Across Kenya, this kind of explanation is being repeated because the pattern looks familiar—only the names and campuses change. Almost 50 fires have ripped through Kenyan schools this year. Sixteen schoolgirls have died, and more than 100 schools have temporarily closed. The crisis has turned into a daily reality for families trying to keep children in classrooms instead of on memorial days.
Many people suspect the worst behavior is spreading. Some likely are copying incidents at other schools. and some may also be mirroring the violent protests on Kenyan streets over government corruption and economic stagnation. which often see public areas and businesses set alight. There is a political pressure too, Gachutha said. “These are young people who are going through a school system that is not giving them jobs. ” she said. and fires “can be a way of rebelling against the government.”.
Yet even as the grief widens, the people who know the day-to-day are hesitant to speak. AFP visited smouldering ruins of a dorm at Gathiruini Boys Secondary School in Kiambu County earlier this month. where a fire fortunately left no casualties—but teachers and local education officials refused to speak. An experienced principal of a boarding school in western Kenya agreed to talk to AFP only anonymously. saying that teachers could face disciplinary action for speaking to the media.
He described how he recently had to send pupils home after receiving an anonymous note threatening “action.” His account points to another layer of fear on top of the fire risk—“There is a lot of blackmail from these teenagers now,” he said, blaming a culture of “over-entitled” children.
Still, he returned repeatedly to the foundations: delayed and insufficient funding from the government, including “misuse” by officials, he said. “Greedy” headmasters. he added. oversubscribed some schools to get more cash. with pupils often sleeping in converted cafeterias or corridors. in violation of safety guidelines.
That view echoes a parent’s anger, who also spoke anonymously. “The teaching fraternity has turned schools into a cash cow,” the parent said.
Safety gaps appear just as stubborn as the funding failures. Multiple emergency responders told AFP there is a lack of basic safety measures. Isaac Maina. head of national operations at G4S. among Kenya’s largest private fire responders. said: “Many schools simply cannot afford a robust fire response plan.”.
Others point to decisions about security that can trap children instead of protecting them. George Ndege. head of the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK). said school boards believed ensuring “students don’t sneak out is more critical than their safety”—leading to grilled windows and barricaded dormitory doors.
AAK said it had identified 55,000 public schools with “deplorable conditions,” and vowed to revamp them. Ndege said the work would take years.
The government’s stance has also collided with the scale of the harm. President William Ruto’s government said this week it would not offer financial bailouts for impacted schools. placing the costs on parents. At the same time, it pledged a taskforce to examine factors behind school fires. But promises have a track record too.
After a dorm fire killed 21 boys in 2024, the education ministry ordered 348 boarding schools to convert into day schools for safety reasons. It is not clear if that was ever implemented. The ministry did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
The sequence of events has started to feel like a cycle families can’t afford to keep repeating. One fire destroys. one inquiry follows. another closes. and then the same structural vulnerabilities remain—locked doors. underfunded response plans. and schools where overcrowding can turn a night emergency into a trap.
Peter Kinyanjui, who survived a school fire when he was a teenager some 20 years ago, put it plainly. “Fire is not a yesterday phenomenon. It’s not an issue that is coming to surprise people,” he said. “We haven’t learnt the lessons.”
Kenyan school fires Utumishi Girls' Academy Nakuru County boarding schools arson attacks fire regulations education funding corruption school safety President William Ruto