Seventeen pupils have died after a dormitory at a boarding school in central Kenya caught fire on Thursday night, the Ministry of Education has said.
There were fears the death toll could rise on Friday morning, with 14 other children taken to hospital with injuries.
More than 150 pupils were in the dormitory when it caught fire at around midnight local time. The school caters for children aged between five and 12.
The cause of the fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy, in Nyeri county, is not yet known.
President William Ruto called the fire “horrific” and “devastating”, and has ordered an investigation.
“Those responsible will be held to account,” Mr Ruto wrote on social media.
A team of investigators, including forensics experts, were deployed to the school, police said.
The blaze spread very fast as most of the buildings in the school were made of timber, according to a journalist from Citizen TV, a local TV station.
Earlier, police spokesperson Resila Onyango told the AFP news agency that bodies recovered were “burnt beyond recognition”.
“More bodies are likely to be recovered once (the) scene is fully processed,” she added.
“The county government has done all it can to salvage the situation,” Nyeri county Governor Mutahi Kahiga said.
Firefighters put out the fire with the help of people living nearby, who were the first to respond.
Local official Samson Mwangi Mwema told the BBC the rescue operation was difficult, saying: “We found the dormitory had caught fire, we tried to rescue – we found some children under the bed and we were able to rescue them.”
