School fire kills almost sixty

At least fifty-eight children have been killed in a fire at their school in Kenya.

About thirty others were seriously injured when the fire broke out in a dormitory in the early hours of the morning.

All the victims are thought to be boys.

It happened at a boarding school in the district of Machakos about sixty kilometres from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Police said they didn't yet know what had caused the blaze.

Three years ago, more than twenty schoolgirls were killed in a fire at another school in Kenya, after they had been locked inside their dormitory for the night. And earlier this month, more than twenty girls died in similar circumstances in Nigeria.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service