Kenya: Female students to be charged with 16 murders after dormitory fire

Kenyan female students will be charged in connection with the murders of 16 classmates in the devastating fire in a dormitory in late May that plunged the East African country into mourning, the prosecution announced Tuesday.

Sixteen students, aged 15 to 18, died and 132 were injured in the fire that broke out shortly after midnight on May 28 in a dormitory at the Utumishi girls' school in Gilgil, about 100 kilometers north of Nairobi.

Nine students from this academy, which mainly catered to the children of police officers, remain in custody. Most of them were arrested on May 29, the day after the tragedy, for "arson".

"After careful examination of the evidence" in the preliminary investigation file transmitted by the criminal investigations department, the national prosecutor's office indicated that it had "approved the prosecution of the students involved."

"The suspects will be prosecuted on sixteen counts of murder related to this incident," he added on X.

A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office told AFP that following the approval of the charges, female students will be formally charged in court, "probably tomorrow," without specifying how many of them will be charged, because they are minors.

Many students are boarding students in Kenya, a legacy of missionaries and British colonization.

The East African country has already experienced countless deadly fires in the dormitories of these schools: no fewer than 47 of them were recorded in 2026 alone by the Kenyan Red Cross.

Several other fires have broken out since the one in Utumishi, and dozens of boarding schools have sent their students home to avoid similar disasters.

Experts suggest that attacks are due to imitation, but also to years of accumulated frustration with an under-resourced and extremely demanding education system.

The national prosecutor's office expressed its "deep concern over the recent increase in arson and other acts of delinquency in educational institutions across the country."

"We want to remind students and the public that those found guilty of such offences will be prosecuted," he stressed.

AFP