A survivor of the deadly Utumishi Girls Academy dormitory fire has recounted the events surrounding the fire outbreak, which killed 16 students as 74 others were left injured.
The survivor, Joy Wanjiku Munge, has called upon the government to impose strict legal action against the students linked to starting the fire in the school.
According to Joy, the students behind the Utumishi Girls fire were not remorseful after starting the fire, and a five-year sentence will not be justice for students who lost their lives.
“I am saying this with a very bitter heart; those girls, please let them rot in prison. Yes, I am not ashamed to say that because even after doing whatever they did, they were not remorseful in any way. Some were even laughing, some smiling, some were hugging and others crying not because people died but because they lost their lip gloss,” Joy Wanjiku Munge stated during an interview with Asulab TV.
In addition to the suspects being unremorseful, Joy added that the cases of students setting schools on fire are a major challenge in Kenya.
Further, she explained the recurrence of schools being set on fire by students is because most of the perpetrators do not face harsh penalties.
Citing the five-year jail term penalty that in Kenya can be issued against students, Joy emphasized that the penalty is not strict enough.
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Utumishi Girls Fire Outbreak
Recalling the night the Utumishi Girls dormitory caught fire, Joy noted that the students behind the Utumishi Girls dormitory fire started the fire and ran out of the dormitory without waking any student.
Accounting for the number of girls present during the fire as 808, and the total population as 815, Joy stated that some of the students were away due to school fees, while others had left because they were unwell.
As a student who sleeps at the Stanford dormitory, the survivor clarified that she could not account for the presence of the matron, as the matron is always in the other lower dorms.
Further, through some of her classmates, Joy stated that the matron is said to have saved some of the students from the fire.
She, however, added that the matron’s decision the remove the gas cooker and fridge was the best, as failure to do so would have caused an explosion, with more fatalities likely.
According to Joy, most of the fire survivors jumped through the windows of the Oxford dormitories because the dormitory doors remained closed, as they always have at the school.
During the fire, Precious, a classmate of Joy who lost her life, saved several students and even offered her jacket to another student, and in the attempt to save others, she lost her life.
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Call to the Government
Joy Wanjiku Munge has called upon the government and the Ministry of Education to issue directives on structural design in learning institutions.
Dormitories, according to Joy, should be designed with large, open, and accessible windows, unlike Cube 12 at the Utumishi Academy, which had no windows.
Further, she has urged the government to ensure that school dormitories have exit doors, which in the case of Utumishi, had been blocked using timber.
Referencing that Utumishi Academy had no water supply during the dormitory fire, Joy has emphasized that schools should have a constant water supply and fire extinguishers.
“There should be a water supply; our school did not have any water when all that was happening, and even though we wanted to help, we could not,” Joy noted.
In addition, the survivor has advised the government on CCTV installation in learning institutions, which will help in monitoring students.
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