Thousands of mourners gathered on Thursday in Nyeri town, Kenya, for a somber memorial service honoring the 21 young boys who perished in a fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy earlier this month. Rows of small white coffins, adorned with flowers and photographs of the victims—aged between nine and thirteen—stood before the grieving crowd. The children were trapped in their dormitory when the fire broke out.
Eugene Wamalwa, an opposition party leader, expressed the nation’s grief, calling it “one of the greatest national tragedies” Kenya has faced.
Kenya has a painful history of school fires, with over 60 cases of arson in public secondary schools reported in 2018, according to parliamentary data. The cause of the Hillside Endarasha Academy fire remains unknown, but past fires have often been linked to student protests against harsh discipline and poor living conditions.
In 2017, a similar tragedy occurred when a fire at a Nairobi school claimed the lives of 10 girls. A teenage student was charged with manslaughter for setting that fire.
Among the mourners at Thursday’s service was Maryanne Mwangi, whose 14-year-old daughter Virlear had died in the 2017 fire. She expressed anger and frustration that government efforts to address the problem had failed to improve conditions in schools.
“I prayed Bubbles would be the last child to die in a school fire,” she said, using her daughter’s nickname. Mwangi criticized the strict, militaristic rules in Kenyan boarding schools, which she believes contribute to the discontent that sometimes leads students to commit arson as a way to escape the harsh environment.
The tragedy has reignited calls for urgent reforms in Kenya’s school system to prevent further loss of young lives.
