Fire breaks out at another Kenyan school after 21 die in inferno

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NAIROBI (Reuters) – A fire broke out at a girls’ boarding school in a town in central Kenya late on Saturday, leaving at least three students injured and destroying property, the Kenya Red Cross and police said.

The fire follows the death of at least 21 students in a blaze at a boarding primary school, Hillside Endarasha Academy, in Nyeri, also in central Kenya, early on Friday.

“A fire incident has been reported at Isiolo Girls High School, Isiolo County,” the Kenya Red Cross said in a post on the X platform late on Saturday. Early on Sunday, it said the fire had been contained and that three minor injuries had been recorded.

Kenya Police spokesperson Resila Onyango also said late on Saturday that a fire at the school had been contained. She did not say what had caused the blaze.

Moments after the blaze was extinguished, police, fire and rescue squads could be seen using flashlights to search for any students and salvageable property in the wrecked dormitories, according to a Reuters witness.

The death toll in the Friday fire was initially given as 17, but a government statement seen by Reuters on Sunday showed it had now risen to 21.

Nineteen bodies were recovered at the scene of the inferno, while two victims died at hospitals where they had been taken for treatment, the statement said.

(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo and Noor Ali, Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by William Mallard and Jan Harvey)