Two Form 2 girls have been arrested following a fire outbreak at a Machakos school on Sunday night.
The duo who included a foreigner were nabbed shortly after the fire razed two dormitories at Nyayo Girls Secondary School in Kalama, Machakos County.
The tragedy is said to have happened at about 8.25pm on Sunday.
“The two suspects have been detained at Konza police station where they spent their night after they were linked with the incidents,” a source revealed.
Nothing was salvaged during the fire outbreaks that guttered the dormitories which hosted 146 students.
There were no reported injuries or fatalities in the incidents since students were in classrooms for their night preps when the fire incident occurred.
“Nothing was salvaged from the dormitories during the incidents. All the affected students were accommodated in classrooms where they spent their night waiting to be released to go home today,” he said.
324 out of 526, the total number of the learners, were in the school during the incident.
Police have launched investigations into the incident.
Elsewhere in the neighbouring Makueni County, a dormitory was reportedly razed at Makindu Girls High School on the same night.
Police said the dormitory that accommodated 55 students went down in flames following students’ unrest in the institution.
No fatalities were reported during the incident.
More than five schools in the county were reported to have been closed Sunday night with children to be released this morning.
In Machakos County, several public secondary schools were on Sunday evening closed indefinitely due to student unrest.
The students will be released to go home this morning.
“I’m releasing my students tomorrow due to security concerns, especially after reported unrest. Parents too are demanding for learners to be released,” a school principal said.
Mitaboni ABC Girls in Kathiani subcounty is among the schools that have been closed indefinitely.
The closure has come as the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) intensifies their strike.
Kuppet, Machakos branch secretary general Musembi Katuku confirmed the schools’ closure, stating that several schools will be sending students back home tomorrow.
“No teaching is going on in these schools because there are no teachers,” Katuku said.
Kuppet officials early Sunday held a National Governing Council meeting and declared that their nationwide strike is still on.
They maintained that no teaching would go on in all the schools across the country, urging parents to go pick up their children from their respective schools.
“That the schools are not running and they are not going to run. For the next week and even beyond, the teachers will remain at home,” Kuppet Secretary General Akelo Misori said.
The first week of the third school term has been rocked by demonstrations in various parts of the country as teachers affiliated with Kuppet agitated for their grievances with their employer—the Teachers Service Commission.
Tension was reported at Machakos High School on Sunday evening as students demanded to be released to go home.
“Ni kubaya, they want to go home. They are being addressed at the assembly,” a teacher at the school said.
The tutor at the school said the agitated students had been told to return to their dormitories.
There were claims that some of the tutors residing within the school compound and who had responded to calm the students scampered for safety after the learners became violent.
The incidents come days after some Kuppet members stormed several schools within the county to reportedly eject teachers suspected to have been working as their colleagues continued with the protests.
The Kuppet members vowed to completely paralyze learning in all schools across the country until the governments heed their demands.
