BBC

Monday, 26 March, 2001, 10:04 GMT 11:04 UK Children die in Kenya school fire

At least 58 secondary school pupils have died in a fire in the early hours of Monday morning at a mixed boarding school south-east of the capital, Nairobi.

All the victims were boys and Kenyan police are investigating reports that the dormitory they were sleeping in had been petrol bombed.

A statement said 28 other pupils were seriously injured. Many of them are in Machakos district hospital, although the most serious have been rushed to Nairobi's main hospital, some 60 km away.

Many of the 130 teenage boys in the dormitory at the Kyanguli secondary school managed to scramble to safety after the fire began at 0140 local time.

"First the fumes engulfed them, and then the roof caved in. The fire spread very quickly," Machakos district police commissioner Hussein Dado told Reuters news agency.

Weeping relatives assembled outside the burnt out single-storey brick building, while Kenyan investigators have begun examining the site for clues.

Eyewitnesses say some charred bodies are still inside.

Arson?

Police spokesman Dola Indidis has told the BBC that they did not yet know how the worst school fire in Kenya in three years was started and did not wish to speculate.

But local police chief Julius Narangui told reporters at the scene that arson was suspected.

The police criminal investigation service are reported to have been asked to investigate.

A private Kenyan radio station, Daily Nation FM, has suggested that the fire could have been started by a petrol bomb.

Three years ago, more than 20 girls were killed in a fire at another school in Kenya, after they had been locked inside their dormitory for the night.

And earlier this month, more than 20 schoolgirls died in similar circumstances in Nigeria.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2001