Pauline OdhiamboThe flickering glow of the surveillance monitors told a story that has become chillingly familiar to Kenyans—yet no amount of familiarity could prepare the investigators for what they saw next. As Kenya's Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen watched the final moments before a dormitory erupted into an inferno, he saw not strangers, but seemingly ordinary schoolgirls moving with chilling purpose.
“I was reviewing the CCTV footage of Utumishi Academy, and I felt very sad,” Murkomen told reporters on Sunday. “I even struggled to sleep because we could see the kids who were coming to light the fire.”
The footage, now at the center of a sprawling criminal investigation, shows students from Utumishi Girls Academy setting the blaze that killed 16 of their peers and injured 79 others on Thursday, May 28.
The fire at the girls’ boarding school in Gilgil, Nakuru County — about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Nairobi — has become one of Kenya’s deadliest school fires in recent years, reigniting a fierce national debate over safety, discipline, and the silent crises brewing inside boarding institutions.
‘I saw my friend on fire’
One survivor, a Form Three student who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, described the terror of that night. Speaking from her hospital bed at the Nakuru County General Hospital, she recalled being jolted awake by screams.
“I heard someone shouting ‘Fire! Fire!’ and when I opened my eyes, the ceiling was already burning,” she said, her voice trembling. “I saw my friend on fire—she was sleeping on the bunk below me. I jumped from the window. I didn’t care that it was the second floor. I just wanted to live.”
She later learned that five of her dormitory mates did not make it out.
“We used to laugh together, study together. Now I don’t even know who I can trust.”
According to Minister Murkomen, who personally reviewed the surveillance footage obtained by investigators, the students involved appeared to be bright and promising—a detail that only deepened his distress.
“Very brilliant kids. Some who have got the best because that’s a national school,” Murkomen said. “But for them to just get paraffin and a matchbox and burn a dormitory, really consciously seeing their colleagues sleeping there and walk out and leave them to die, that is something.”
Describing the footage as deeply disturbing, Murkomen urged students across the country to prioritize character alongside academic excellence.
“Don’t only focus on passing my exams,” he stated. “You must ask yourself, where is the place of character and discipline in your life?”
Teachers ‘ignored’ warning
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) announced a major breakthrough following a detailed forensic analysis of the CCTV footage at the Forensic Imaging and Acoustic Laboratory within the National Police Service Forensics Laboratory. Investigators, working with teachers, were able to positively identify seven students who participated in the arson before fleeing the scene.
Six of the eight originally arrested students remain in custody, while efforts are underway to trace the seventh identified student who had been released to her parents.
In the immediate aftermath, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba delivered a stark assessment of the school’s failures. During a press conference, he announced that the school’s Board of Management had been dissolved and that disciplinary action would be taken against the principal and two teachers who had reportedly been warned of the planned attack but failed to act.
“The school did not adhere to the safety requirements as stipulated in The School Safety Manual and The Basic Education Regulations,” Ogamba stated at the press conference on Friday. “In particular, there was congestion in the dormitory and one exit door was locked, contrary to the prescribed safety requirements.”
He further revealed that the dormitory had 135 bunk beds—designed to accommodate far more students than safety regulations permit—and that the locked exit door had prevented many from escaping.
“Two teachers were informed of planned unrest by a section of Form Three learners but did not take appropriate action before the arson,” Ogamba said, adding that they would be subject to disciplinary proceedings.
A history written in smoke
The government has also announced that investigations are ongoing to establish negligence on the part of officers from the Ministry of Education and the Teachers Service Commission, with appropriate legal action to follow.
In response to the tragedy, Murkomen has called on school principals and boards of management nationwide to take proactive measures implementing standard security protocols.
“You must take proactive steps as principals and boards of management to ensure that our dormitories are not congested, that they have proper emergency exits,” Murkomen said while speaking in Kericho County on May 31.
He also urged schools to strengthen surveillance measures: “We need to ensure that all schools have properly installed CCTV cameras covering critical areas, as well as a central control room for effective monitoring and response.”
Drawing lessons from the tragedy, Murkomen noted that warning signs had been ignored. “One of the things we have learned from Utumishi Girls Academy is that information shared by students was, in some cases, taken for granted,” he said.
The Utumishi fire is not an isolated tragedy. Just 18 months earlier, in September 2024, a devastating fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County claimed the lives of 21 boys, sending shockwaves across the country. That fire, which tore through a dormitory housing more than 300 students, remains one of Kenya’s deadliest school fires in recent memory. Its cause was never conclusively established.
In the wake of that disaster, the Education Ministry began an 18-month audit of school health and safety standards, leading to the closure of nearly 350 boarding schools. Kenya’s deadliest school fire remains the 2001 Kyanguli Secondary School tragedy in Machakos, where students set fire to a dormitory, killing 67 boys.
Despite these repeated catastrophes, the Utumishi case represents a disturbingly familiar shift—not faulty wiring or an accident, but alleged premeditated arson by students against their own peers.
A hero in the ashes
Among the 16 victims, one story has emerged as a beacon of selflessness. Cecilia Wanjiku, a Form Four student, died while attempting to save her fellow students. Gilgil Constituency Member of Parliament Martha Wangari mourned Wanjiku as a bright and promising student whose academic achievements and bravery left a lasting impact.
“Cecilia was a Form Four student, one of our bright scholars whose future carried so much promise,” Wangari stated.
According to the MP, sixteen-year old Wanjiku was a beneficiary of the National Government Constituencies Development Fund which finances development projects including health and education. Being an NGCDF scholar, Cecilia received financial support from the fund to attend school.
After scoring 399 out of 500 marks in her KCPE examinations, Wanjiku was recognized as the school’s top performer in sciences, maintaining grades no lower than a B+. She had been selected to represent her school in a biology competition scheduled for June 6 at Amref University in Nairobi.
“Her bravery, brilliance and selflessness will forever remain in our hearts and in the hearts of all whose lives she touched,” Wangari said.
As Kenya mourns, the question echoing through parliament halls, school corridors, and living rooms across the nation is no longer just ‘how’ the fire started, it is ‘why’. Investigators have not yet announced charges as they continue examining the motive and full circumstances surrounding the fire.
Meanwhile, as the government moves to install CCTV cameras in schools across the country and enforce safety regulations that have been ignored for years, the families of the 16 girls wait for justice—and for answers that no surveillance footage can provide.
Murkomen offers a final reflection on what the footage revealed, warning students against an overemphasis on academic performance at the expense of moral grounding.
“It is not enough to be brilliant,” he states. “It is important to have the right character, the right attitude of learning, and the necessary skills that you need to navigate life.”
