By James Murimi - Reporter
Kenya, November 21, 2025 - A night of fragmented confusion, desperate rescue efforts, and lingering unanswered questions is slowly coming into focus as witnesses recount the harrowing moments leading up to the inferno that claimed the lives of 21 boys at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Kieni Constituency, Nyeri County, on September 5, 2024.
During the opening of a public inquest before Nyeri Senior Resident Magistrate Mary Gituma, the first three witnesses—a guard, a matron, and the former boarding master—painted a chilling picture of a school community scrambling to save lives amid darkness, noise from a neighboring church, and a fire that spread rapidly through the boys' dormitory.
The inquest, ordered by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and announced by Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, aims to establish the chain of events and determine whether lapses in safety protocols contributed to the tragedy that struck just two days after the school reopened for the third term.
Former security guard James Maina told the court that he first spotted thick smoke billowing from one of the three doors of the dormitory at about 10 p.m. while on routine patrol.
“I began blowing my whistle for help and started guiding the boys out through the other doors. Some jumped out through the windows,” he said. He added that many cries for help went unheard because they were drowned out by loud night vigil prayers from a nearby church.
Maina revealed that he had been assigned some of the patron’s duties after the patron was injured in an accident two days earlier, but he was prohibited from entering the dormitory during patrols.
He said the dorm doors were usually kept shut, though not locked, to keep stray dogs away, and the windows had no grills. “We used buckets to fight the fire before the fire brigade came. We saved who we could. In the morning, we were told some boys had died,” he said.
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Matron Beatrice Nduta testified that she instinctively shut off the electricity from the main switch after being woken by a girl alerting her to the blaze. She believed an electrical fault could have triggered or worsened the fire.
Nduta, who slept inside the girls’ dormitory cubicle, said she first evacuated the girls to nearby classrooms before switching off the power to prevent the flames from spreading to other buildings. The school relied on both Kenya Power and solar power. She went to check the kitchen, where githeri for the next day was boiling in a closed boiler, to confirm it was not the source of the fire. When water ran out at the kitchen tanks, she directed villagers and school staff to additional tanks near the girls’ dormitory.
Former boarding master Kelvin Ndegwa described a chaotic scene when he arrived at the school after neighbors alerted him to the fire at around 11 p.m. “The school compound was dark. With other teachers, we began gathering children into classrooms as firefighters worked. Many people were already rescuing injured pupils,” he said.
Ndegwa said parents rushed to the school at night, some taking their children home while others sheltered pupils who lived nearby until morning. The confusion made accounting for the boys extremely difficult. “We took several roll calls, but the numbers kept changing. By dawn, we were still trying to establish how many children were present and contacting parents,” he said.
He also explained that the dormitory a structure made of brick and sections of iron sheet roofing—housed 161 boys that day, though it had a capacity for 164. Most beds were metal, with a few wooden ones.
The hearings will continue on February 5, 2026, with more witnesses—including three minors expected to testify. The inquest seeks to establish not only what triggered the fire, but whether structural issues, emergency preparedness, or lapses in supervision contributed to one of the deadliest school tragedies in recent years.
