Overview
- A fire tore through the Melino Waithera dormitory at Utumishi Girls Academy in Gilgil during the early hours of Thursday, May 28, killing 16 students and injuring roughly 73–79 others.
- First responders from the Kenya Red Cross, ambulance crews, firefighters and police evacuated pupils and moved many to St. Joseph’s Hospital and other facilities for treatment of burns, fractures and other injuries.
- The Directorate of Criminal Investigations has launched a multi‑agency probe that includes forensic examinations, CCTV review and witness interviews, and investigators have arrested eight students identified as persons of interest.
- Education officials ordered the immediate closure of the school, which is linked to the National Police Service, while families await post‑mortems and formal identification of the recovered bodies.
- The blaze adds to a long pattern of deadly Kenyan boarding‑school fires tied to arson, electrical faults, overcrowded dorms and blocked exits, and it is likely to renew national safety inspections and possible prosecutions under the ministry’s ongoing audit program.