Eight girls arrested on suspicion of arson after Kenya school fire

The fire broke out at the Utumishi Girls Academy Senior School in Gilgil, killing 16 people and wounding 79 others.

At least eight students have been arrested on suspicion of arson after fire at a boarding school for girls in Kenya killed 16 students and injured 79, police said.

The fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday at the Utumishi Girls Academy Senior School in Gilgil, west-central Kenya.

On Friday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation said preliminary investigations had identified eight people as “persons of interest in connection with the planning and execution of the suspected arson attack”.

“The eight girls have since been arrested and are currently in police custody,” the statement added.

Reporting from the school, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi said police are still investigating potential arson.

“We have been speaking to parents who have been here since the early morning, they were very frustrated earlier because nobody was giving them information,” she said.

“We have parents who say they haven’t seen their children at all – I guess those are the ones, the students [who] died – and then we have parents of whose loved ones, the students, are still inside being interrogated,” Soi added.

Student Hilda Njeri, who was in one of the dorms most-affected by the fire, told Al Jazeera she was still dealing with everything that happened.

“I was badly injured on my leg, and my lower back was badly injured,” Njeri said outside the school on Friday, adding that the principal took the students to hospital and paid all bills for treatment.

“The fire was very [big]; we could not pass through the fire because we had no water to put out the fire, so we had to jump through the window,” she said, adding that she struggled to breathe while inside the building.

Kenyan Education Minister Julius Ogamba told reporters that early investigations found that two teachers had been informed of the students’ alleged plans, but failed to stop them.

Ogamba added that the school failed to follow safety rules, citing overcrowding in the dorms and a locked emergency exit.

The Kenyan government has disbanded the school board of management and will take appropriate legal and disciplinary action against any staff found to have neglected their duties, he said.

Thursday’s school fire follows others in Kenya. In 2024, a blaze in a primary boarding school in Nyeri County killed 21 students. In 2001, 67 schoolboys at Kyanguli Secondary School were killed in an arson attack.