Vindictive Kenyan schoolboys accused of exam cheating are suspected of starting a fire that killed at least 58 of their classmates early yesterday morning.
The blaze broke out just before 2 a.m. in Kyanguli Secondary, a quiet rural school 40 miles south of Nairobi. Within minutes the fire swept through the low building, collapsing the roof and trapping dozen of sleeping schoolboys, aged between 13 and 19.
Some managed to escape through an open door, or crawled through a tiny gap between the wall and roof. But many more died, engulfed by the noxious fumes or pinned under burning beams as they tried to escape through a second, locked, door.
"They were screaming and banging on the door. We tried to break it down but the fire was too tough for us," said Andrew Waema (17), who had been sleeping in an adjacent dormitory.
Smoke was still wisping from tin chests containing the victims' personal effects as President Daniel arap Moi visited the school yesterday, stepping through the mess of twisted bed frames and blackened remains.
"This is a ghastly incident which has never been seen in these parts," he said. "That door should have been opened. These children could have escaped easily." Kenyan police have started a criminal investigation. "We highly suspect arson," said division police chief Julius Narangwi.
Just one night earlier the schoolboys reported a petrol spill in the same dormitory. "The school cleaned it up and tried to investigate. But we don't know who it was," said 14-year-old Kanyange Ngila, who was suffering from face and arm burns, at Machakos District Hospital.
In the ward parents, relatives and neighbours crowded around the boys, some of whom were too shocked to talk. The 14 worst cases - some with as much as 70 per cent burns - had earlier been transferred to Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi.
But nobody was speaking to one boy, who lay huddled and hidden under his blanket. "He is among those suspected of masterminding the issue," whispered a doctor, who did not wish to be named. "He tried to refuse his medications this morning."
Teachers said the school had been caught up in an exam cheating scandal just days earlier. The mathematics papers of some 117 students had been cancelled for alleged cheating.
On Friday the alleged cheaters tried to organise a one-day student strike to have the principal, Mr David Kiiler, removed. However, the strike failed, and students went to class, which has been suggested as a possible motive for the attack.
Mr Kiiler refused to comment yesterday. "I'm very exhausted, I'm really shattered," he said outside his office.
The school blaze is the biggest, but not the first, such tragedy in Kenya. Exactly three years earlier fire swept through the dormitory of a girls' school near the main port of Mombasa, leaving 22 dead and a further 80 injured. The girls had been locked into their dormitory to keep intruders out.
The palaeontologist and conservationist, Dr Richard Leakey, yesterday resigned as head of Kenya's civil service and secretary to the cabinet, the office of President Daniel arap Moi announced. Dr Leakey, a white Kenyan long an outspoken critic of Mr Moi, was appointed to head the civil service in July 1999.