Kenyans who died in a school fire were honored at a mass funeral

Families, friends, and peers of the 21 kids who died in a boarding school fire in central Kenya earlier this month said their final goodbyes on Thursday. Nine of the kids were buried in small white coffins.

The funerals for the nine to thirteen-year-old boys from Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri town were led by dozens of kids holding flower wreaths.

The fire spread through the building on September 6 and locked them in their dorm. Kenya has a sad history of school fires. The most current data from the government shows that there were more than 60 arson attacks in public secondary schools in 2018.

Earlier, thousands of people came to a mourning service for the young victims. Flower bouquets and their pictures were placed on top of coffins.

“These young, pure souls. “Young men,” Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said at the service. “Our heart cries for them.”

But experts say that many similar fires have been started by students to protest harsh punishments and bad conditions. No one knows what started the fire yet.

Ten girls died in a fire at a school house in Nairobi in 2017 that got a lot of attention. A student in his or her teens was charged with killing for setting fires.

One of the people who died in 2017 was Virlear Mwangi, Maryanne Mwangi’s 14-year-old daughter. Mwangi was furious when he heard about the latest fire. He said that the government had not done anything to make schools safer in the years that had passed.

“I (didn’t) want to look at social media because I’m telling myself, ‘it can’t be happening again,'” she told the news agency.

“I always prayed that Bubbles would be the last child to die in a school fire,” Mwangi said, using the name of her daughter.

Mwangi said that Kenyan private schools often have too many strict rules, which makes students unhappy and leads some of them to set fires to get out of school and go home.

“There are rules in our schools.” “It looks a lot like a military camp,” she said.