CCTV footage has revealed the final moments before the deadly fire broke out at Utumishi Girls Senior Secondary School in Gilgil, Nakuru County.
The footage captures a group of students moving through the dormitory moments before flames engulfed the building.
According to details emerging from the footage, the events unfolded at around ten minutes past midnight on Thursday, May 28, when five students were captured walking inside the dormitory.
The footage shows them tiptoeing between sleeping areas while appearing to confirm whether fellow students had already fallen asleep.
The group was first captured near cube 11 before moving toward cube 13, where they briefly disappeared from camera view.
Read More
Approximately 20 seconds later, the students reappeared, but this time appearing to move with urgency.
The CCTV footage shows two students stopping near cube 11, where they are believed to have lit a fire before throwing it inside and quickly moving to another cube, where they repeated the same.
The students then proceeded to a third cube, where they again threw fire before quickly running downstairs.
Within moments, some students woke up after noticing flames and smoke before raising the alarm.
Panic quickly spread as students scrambled to escape while thick smoke engulfed the dormitory building.
By the time rescue efforts began, 16 students had lost their lives in what has become one of the country’s most tragic school disasters.
Meanwhile, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has identified seven students alleged to have lit the tragic fire.
In a statement on Sunday, May 31, DCI said CCTV footage recovered from the school, coupled with enhanced review at the Forensic Imaging and Acoustic Laboratory, enabled detectives to positively identify the suspects.
According to the DCI, six of the seven identified students are among the eight suspects who had earlier been arrested in connection with the incident.
The investigative agency noted that the seventh suspect was among the students released to their parents, and efforts to bring her into custody are ongoing.
"Further analysis of the CCTV footage, conducted in collaboration with the teachers, has enabled the investigation team to confirm the identity of seven students who participated in the arson before escaping the scene.
"Of the eight suspects previously arrested, six have been positively identified and confirmed through the footage. The seventh identified student was among those earlier released to their parents and is currently not in custody. Efforts are now underway to trace and arrest her," read part of the statement.
At the same time, DCI noted that postmortem examination conducted on the sixteen deceased students confirmed that they died as a result of severe burns.
The agency mentioned that the autopsy was conducted at the Naivasha Sub-County Referral Hospital Mortuary by a team of pathologists led by Dorothy Njeri.
"The examinations confirmed that all sixteen students died as a result of severe burns. While at the hospital, the Kenya Red Cross teams provided psychosocial support to the bereaved families, who were allowed to view the bodies of their loved ones," DCI said.
Further, DCI said DNA samples were collected from family members of the victims to facilitate formal identification of the remains.
"DNA reference samples were also collected from the families of the deceased students to facilitate formal identification of the remains, which was necessitated by the extent of the burns," DCI added.
-1780293605.jpg)
