{"id":35688,"date":"2026-05-28T12:06:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T10:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=35688"},"modified":"2026-05-28T12:06:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T10:06:45","slug":"kenya-school-fire-death-toll-rises-to-16","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/kenya-school-fire-death-toll-rises-to-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya school fire death toll rises to 16"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>A fire tore through a dormitory at a girls&#8217; school in a town in Kenya&#8217;s Rift Valley overnight, killing 16 students, the government said on Thursday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The fire, whose cause \u200bhas not been established, broke out just after midnight at the Utumishi \u200bGirls&#8217; Academy Senior School in Gilgil in west-central Kenya and burned \u2060for more than two hours, Education Minister Julius Migos told reporters.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He said 79 \u200bother students were injured, although 71 of them had already been discharged from \u200bhospital.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Footage aired on Kenyan television showed broken window panes and smoke-stained walls, while family members gathered outside the school gates to seek news of missing loved ones.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fires are common at Kenyan \u200bschools, with more than 100 recorded in 2024, according to the government. Many \u200bfires are set by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions, researchers have found.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Investigations are ongoing, but the identification of the cause of the fire (at Utumishi Girls&#8217; Academy) is not yet identified,&#8221; Migos said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35689,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-35688","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Kenya fire kills 16 students","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35690,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35688\/revisions\/35690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}