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Kenya dormitory fire kills 58
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POLICE in Kenya say a fire at a boarding school that killed 58 teenage boys and injured 28 others on Monday may have been deliberately set.
The boys died when fire broke out overnight in the dormitory of a secondary school near the town of Machakos, 65 kilometres east of Nairobi.
Anguished parents converged on the town, combing through the rubble in a desperate search for signs that their children may have survived. Some, overcome with grief, were counselled by Red Cross emergency workers.
According to a teacher, one of the boys said he saw liquid spread out on the floor just before the blaze broke out. Another survivor said he spotted someone wearing a sports jacket running away from the scene before the fire erupted.
One of the two doors was padlocked and the windows had iron bars, which prevented the boys from escaping the flames.
Touring the scene, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, said the door should have been left open. "These children could have escaped easily,'' he said. He pledged to investigate.
Earlier this month, 23 girls were killed in northern Nigeria after a kerosene lamp was knocked over in their school dormitory.
And in 1998, more than 20 were killed in a similar fire inside a locked dormitory near the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa.
(SD-Agencies)
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