Kenya arrests eight girls on suspicion of arson after school fire

Saturday May 30, 2026

Kenya Red Cross workers recover a body after Thursday’s blaze at Utumishi Girls Academy, May 28, 2026. [AFP]

Kenyan police said at least eight students have been taken into custody on suspicion of arson after a fire at a girls’ boarding school left 16 students dead and 79 others injured.

The inferno erupted in the early hours of Thursday at Utumishi Girls Academy Senior School in Gilgil, in west-central Kenya.

On Friday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation said initial inquiries had singled out eight people as “persons of interest in connection with the planning and execution of the suspected arson attack”.

“The eight girls have since been arrested and are currently in police custody,” the statement added.

From the scene, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi said investigators were still working to determine whether the fire was deliberately set.

“We have been speaking to parents who have been here since the early morning, they were very frustrated earlier because nobody was giving them information,” she said.

“We have parents who say they haven’t seen their children at all – I guess those are the ones, the students [who] died – and then we have parents of whose loved ones, the students, are still inside being interrogated,” Soi added.

Hilda Njeri, a student who was in one of the dormitories hardest hit by the fire, told Al Jazeera she was still trying to process what had happened.

“I was badly injured on my leg, and my lower back was badly injured,” Njeri said outside the school on Friday, adding that the principal took the students to hospital and paid all bills for treatment.

“The fire was very [big]; we could not pass through the fire because we had no water to put out the fire, so we had to jump through the window,” she said, adding that she struggled to breathe while inside the building.

Kenyan Education Minister Julius Ogamba told reporters that early findings indicated two teachers had been told about the students’ alleged plans but did not intervene to stop them.

Ogamba said the school also failed to comply with safety regulations, pointing to overcrowded dormitories and a locked emergency exit.

The Kenyan government has dissolved the school board of management and will pursue legal and disciplinary action against any staff members found to have neglected their duties, he said.

Thursday’s tragedy adds to a grim history of school fires in Kenya. In 2024, 21 students died in a blaze at a primary boarding school in Nyeri County. In 2001, 67 schoolboys were killed in an arson attack at Kyanguli Secondary School.