Grief befell a secondary school in Nyeri after two students were burnt beyond recognition after a dormitory was reportedly set ablaze by fellow students.
The two students Kennedy Karogo Njuguna and Joseph Mwangi Maina of Endarasha Boys Secondary School in Kieni West district were trapped when a fire broke out at the Fr Wambugu dormitory where 180 form one students slept.
The charred remains of the two students, blackened by the raging inferno, lay near an exit door, an indication they got burnt while trying to escape from the burning building.
The building was also badly damaged with the roof caving in and burnt metal beds and boxes which were littered outside the dormitory, perhaps as students tried to rescue some of their belongings.
Following the incident, nine form one students have been arrested. Also arrested were the owner of a petrol selling outlet at Endarasha town and a man he reportedly instructed to sell petrol to the students.
Police recovered a 10 litre container believed to have carried petrol which was used to set the dormitory ablaze.
Students are said to have jumped over the school fence and walked the 500 meters to Endarasha trading centre where they bought the fuel.
At the school, distraught parents poured into the school to check on safety of their students and a Government delegation led by Central Provincial Commissioner Japheth Rugut visited the institution.
Mr Rugut directed that the students in form one be sent home indefinitely as investigations into the root causes that led to the tragedy were investigated.
“I direct a team led by the Provincial Director of Education to interrogate discipline and management issues to avert future tragedies,” he said.
The PC, accompanied by members of the provincial security team among them Central police chief John M’Mbijjiwe, directed the school management to decide the fate of the students in form two and form three.
Those in form four, being candidates, will remain at the school to sit KCSE examinations set to begin on Thursday.
Students and some staff members who spoke to the Nation said there had been discontent mainly from the form twos and threes demanding a change of management, and provision of amenities such as a swimming pool and pavements, proposals the parents declined to endorse.
Those demands are said to have culminated in the tragedy, which left the dormitory badly damaged and student property destroyed.
