SCHOOL FOR BLIND CHILDREN BURNS DOWN IN UGANDA DURING CHILDREN’S SLEEP

Tue 25 October 2022:

In a fire that ripped through a dormitory at a school for the blind in eastern Uganda as students were sleeping, at least 11 people—mostly children—have died, according to officials.

East of the capital, Kampala, in the Mukono district’s Luga village, the Salama School for the Blind, the catastrophe happened at around one in the morning on Tuesday (2:00 AM GMT on Monday).

“The cause of the fire is currently unknown but so far 11 deaths as a result of the fire have been confirmed while six are in critical conditions and admitted [to hospital],” the Uganda Police Force said on Twitter.

The cause of the fire is currently unknown but so far 11 deaths as a result of the fire have been confirmed while 6 are in critical conditions and admitted at Herona Hospital in Kisoga .
More details will be availed as soon as Possible.

— Uganda Police Force (@PoliceUg) October 25, 2022

Police added that an investigation had been launched and more details would be released later.

“Most of the dead are children at the school and our sympathies go to the parents,” internal affairs minister General Kahinda Otafiire told AFP news agency.

He said the school has been cordoned off as a “crime scene” and promised accountability.

“As government, we shall go to the root cause of the fire and if there are any culprits they will be apprehended and the law will take its course,” he added.

Caught while sleeping

The school’s head teacher Francis Kirube, who is also blind, said the flames swept through the dormitory as the pupils slept.

Images broadcast on Ugandan television showed a charred but still largely intact building where the fire broke out, its window frames and door blackened and the corrugated roof damaged.

Forensic teams were seen in white protective gear at the school while grieving parents gathered nearby.

The Mukono local government constructed Salama in April 1999 to provide care for children and young adults between the ages of six and 25.

In recent years, there have been a number of tragic school fires in Uganda.

At a boarding school in southern Uganda in November 2018, a suspected arson attack left 11 boys dead and 20 others with severe burns.

18 schoolgirls and one adult perished in April 2008 when a fire engulfed their dormitory at a junior school outside the capital of Uganda.

A fire that destroyed a religious school in western Uganda in March 2006 resulted in at least 13 children dying and several others being injured. Six children perished in a comparable fire in the east in July of the same year.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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