13 more students arrested over rampant school fires

Thirteen students from Kako High School in Mbooni, Makueni County were Thursday morning arrested over an attempt to burn the dormitory in their school.

According to the school’s principal Joseph Nzioki, the students were cornered after they had already poured petrol and were about to burn the dormitories.

Mr Nzioki told Citizen Digital that the school watchman realised that the students were about to set the dormitories on fire during his patrol at about 4am Thursday morning and alerted him before he called the police.

Elsewhere, students at Kabarnet High School in Uasin Gishu County set one of their oldest and biggest dormitories on fire on Thursday after they went on a rampage.

It took the efforts of anti-riot police officers to tame the rioting students after they lobbed teargas at them.

This comes just one day after Malindi High School was closed down indefinitely after a second fire burnt down the school library, leading to losses of an unknown value.

Earlier, Kilifi County Commissioner Joseph Keter accompanied by security and education officials visited the school to inspect a dormitory that had burnt down on Tuesday night.

This comes barely two days after the government formed an eight-member Special Investigations Team to ‘vigorously comb the areas affected by incidents of school unrest’.

The team started work immediately and will submit a findings report to the Ministry of Education and the Interior Ministry within 30 days.

The team has membership drawn from the two ministries.

“The report should clearly outline measures to be taken to forestall future cases of unrest and also spell out individuals/parties that will be held responsible for the school fires, including through prosecution and surcharging of suspects,” read a statement signed by Cabinet Secretaries Fred Matiang’i (Education) and Joseph Nkaissery (Interior).

Written by Treezar Awuor