Four schoolchildren died after coming under fire in Uganda capital Kampala. According to the Police Spokesperson, a fire started on January 15, at around 3 a.m. in the dome at New Crest Junior at Kibedi day and Boarding Primary School in Kawempe division, in Kampala suburb.
However, four female students have been confirmed dead, while the other three are seriously injured and admitted to a nearby hospital located in the Kisowera zone.
The school owner failed to alert the police after the fire outbreak in a school, which led to negligence due to which four students lost their lives.
According to Xinhua, one of three students admitted to the hospital said, “I was sleeping, and suddenly our teachers came into our dormitory and told us to get out of the dormitory and sent us to the compound. Our teachers and other staff started pouring water in the dormitory as I saw them. They were pulling out students who were unsteady now.”
Several parents rushed towards school to collect children who survived after getting the news of the fire, although police and school authorities blocked them and did not give them entry into school.
According to Mansul Ssentongo, one of the parents at school said they lost his daughter, Husna Nakawuki.
“On Monday, I dropped my daughter at school after the two years of lockdown and the next day, and I got a telephone that I had lost my daughter after she came in the catch fire and here I am stuck at the gate, and they are not allowing me to go inside and to see the condition of my daughter. ”
However, fires are common in Uganda, although most are not fatal.
The school caught fire last in 2018, in which nine students lost their lives. Before the 2018 incident, another fatal school fire happened in 2008 in which 19 students lost their lives at Budo Junior School in the Wakiso district in the central region.
