Kenya Dormitory Fire Kills 16 Students at Utumishi Girls' Academy
Last update: May 28, 2026
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It’s the nightmare no parent wants to face, a midnight fire ripping through a girls’ dormitory while students are asleep.
A devastating fire tore through a dormitory at Utumishi Girls' Academy Senior School in Gilgil overnight, killing 16 students, the government confirmed on Thursday, according to cbinews.tv.
The blaze broke out just after midnight in the town located in Kenya's Rift Valley, Education Minister Julius Migos told reporters. It burned for more than two hours before it was put out.
Of the 79 other students injured in the fire, 71 have already been discharged from hospital.
Footage broadcast on Kenyan television showed the aftermath, broken window panes, smoke-stained walls, and distraught family members gathered at the school gates, desperate for news of loved ones still unaccounted for.
Sadly, school fires are not uncommon in Kenya. The government recorded more than 100 cases in 2024 alone. Researchers have found that many are started by students protesting harsh discipline and poor living conditions.
This tragedy comes less than a year after a 2024 fire at a primary boarding school in nearby Nyeri County claimed the lives of 21 students. The cause of that fire was never conclusively established.
The worst school fire in recent memory remains the 2001 Kyanguli Secondary School disaster outside Nairobi, where 67 schoolboys died in what authorities said was arson.
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