Nine girls arraigned in court over ‘suspected arson attack’ at Kenyan girls’ school

Nine students accused of planning and executing an arson attack that killed 16 girls at a school in central Kenya appeared in court in Naivasha on Tuesday.

Investigators asked for more time to probe the deadly fire.

The High Court in the town of Naivasha, 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of the capital, Nairobi, said it will issue a ruling on Wednesday on whether the nine girls could be detained for a month pending investigations.

The fire on May 28 ripped through the Utumishi Girls School dormitory that houses 202 students.

The school matron failed to open an emergency door, forcing all the students to scamper through a single door, according to investigators.

The accused girls have been in police custody for five days, during which interrogations revealed that the fire was started by lighting a mattress at the dormitory’s exit using a matchstick and paraffin.

DNA tests to determine the identities of some of the bodies that were charred beyond recognition are ongoing, and results are expected by Wednesday.

CCTV footage obtained from the razed dormitory showed six students convening in the hallway near the exit and starting the fire moments before students woke up and scampered to safety.

Some 79 students were injured in the incident, and seven of those injured were airlifted to Nairobi for specialized treatment.

Since the incident, five more school fire incidents have occurred in different parts of the country, and the Kenya Red Cross has responded to 37 school fires since the beginning of the year. No other school fire has resulted in casualties.

School fires are common in Kenya, with the deadliest occurring in 2001, when 67 students died in Machakos County, and the most recent deadly incident occurring in 2024, when 21 children died in Nyeri County.

Fires at schools have long been a cause of concern for education officials in East Africa, where classrooms and dormitories are often crowded and firefighting equipment is rarely within reach.

Fires are sometimes attributed to electrical faults but there have also been cases of students burning down schools because of disciplinary issues.