The Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) officers have started piecing together forensic information that will reveal what transpired at the Hillside Endarasha Academy on Thursday night as the State appealed for time to conduct investigations.
In his address after visiting the scene of the fire tragedy, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said that the head of State, Dr William Ruto, had ordered expeditious investigations into the incident that claimed the lives of several pupils and left scores of others with injuries with the DP adding that the findings of the inquest would be made public.
‘We have specialized teams from the DCI who are working here for now and that is why we are asking to be given time. The president has ordered expeditious investigations and that is going on and when the report is ready as a government we shall make it public. At this point we don’t want to impute guess work, we just let the investigators do their work,’ said Gachagua.
Initial reports indicate that the fire broke
-out on Thursday night at the boy’s dormitory that housed 152 pupils. According to the DP, a total of 70 students from the institution remain unaccounted for while another 27 were in hospital.
‘There were 311 pupils who were in the boarding school. One passed on in the hospital and indeed, 86 their whereabouts are known. We still have 70 kids that are unaccounted for but that doesn’t mean they are perished or they are injured, the word is they are unaccounted for,’said Gachagua.
The DP has at the same time appealed to parents who picked up their children from the school and members of the neigbouring community who gave refuge to pupils escaping the night inferno to make a report to the number 1199.Gachagua said that the National Government Administration Officers and the Red Cross were teaming up in tracing the missing children.
‘I am appealing to each and every parent who took their child from here to report to the Red Cross and the school so that we know where that child is. We are asking community membe
rs who have given comfort to those children to report the same. That will help us to account for each and every child,’ he said.
This as emotions ran high on Friday evening after parents were finally allowed access to the scene of the Thursday night fire tragedy. The parents had spent the better part of Friday holed up in one of the classrooms where the Red Cross Society provided counseling. At one point, the anxious parents most of whom had not been reunited with their children had threatened to match the scene which had been cordoned off by the investigating team.
‘We are about to embark on another painful exercise of allowing parents to visit the scene. We are taking them there to help them begin the process of closure,’ said Gachagua.
The county government also re-organised its medical services department to help coordinate rescue operations and provide treatment of the victims. According to Nyeri governor, Mutahi Kahiga,the Mount Kenya sub-county hospital was designated as the trauma and accident ce
ntre for the incident. Kahiga said that Naro Moru Level IV hospital would be used by the DCI officers for any forensic investigations.
The County Government and the Red Cross Society are working together to take everyone through counselling. There is also Triage being done to see whether the pupils who need urgent medical attention. We have put on high alert our doctors and our ambulances are on standby to help contain the situation,’ said Kahiga.
Source: Kenya News Agency