Mass grave for Kenyan pupils

The fire blazed through the dormitory

Parents of about 60 boys burnt to death in a fire at a school near the capital, Nairobi, on Monday have agreed that they should be buried in a mass grave.

No date has been set for the ceremony.

Education Minister Kalonzo Muyoka said the parents had set up a fund to raise money to pay for the burial.

Mr Muyoka said that although most of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition, identifying the boys using DNA testing would be too expensive and too slow.

The announcement came as doctors said four more students had died of their injuries.

The boys had been receiving treatment for burns at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi.

Death toll unknown

Parents resolved their religious differences to allow the mass burial to go ahead.

They agreed to follow the example at Bombolulu near Mombasa in 1998 where 26 girls who perished in a similar incident were buried together.

Confusion remains over the final death toll.

Peter Kimanthi, a spokesman for the national police, said 64 boys were confirmed dead and nine others were still missing.

One of the lucky ones

"We cannot say they are dead because their bodies have not been recovered," he said.

"They could still be somewhere hiding in the bush injured or in shock."

Fifty-eight bodies were found in the burnt-out dormitory in Machakos, some 65km from Nairobi.

But no accurate register of boys survived the fire, so it has been difficult to confirm who is missing and who is dead.

One missing boy had turned up later slightly burnt and in shock.

Autopsies have revealed that most of the pupils died after inhaling toxic fumes.

Investigation

The police continue to suspect arson.

They say that people at the school had reported smelling petrol before the fire broke out.

The fire started in the early hours of Monday morning, burning through the rafters of the dormitory and bringing the roof down on the bunk beds below.

Many of the 130 teenage boys in the dormitory at the Kyanguli secondary school did manage to scramble to safety after the fire began at 0140 local time.

However, one of the doors is reported to have been locked and iron burglar bars would have prevented escape via the windows.