No one wants to pronounce that number, 88.
These are the bodies of 9- to 13-year-old boys missing from the embers and rubble of the dormitory of the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Kieni, a village lazily nestled in the hills leading to the town of Nyeri, known for the shrine of Italian fallen soldiers during the Second World War. Even more innocent victims are those of the fire that ravaged the room with no fire exits and that poses the usual disturbing and painful questions about a country that wants to grow and align itself with the ‘first world’ but does so haphazardly and in ways that are daughters of the worst examples absorbed by the West.
Kenyan President William Ruto, from Beijing where he is in the process of concluding new agreements with the Chinese giant octopus, announced three days of national mourning to commemorate the remains of the 18 students aged 9 to 13 who were found and the hopes, also reduced to ashes, of recovering the other 70 alive. There is still hope that some of them managed to escape, others were brought home by their parents and have not yet been heard from, and still others have not returned and are far from Kieni.
Little hope for those who believe in the power of prayers and have in mind the casuistry and certain dynamics of African affairs. The reality is that investigators from the special unit of the National Police have not yet discovered with certainty the causes of the devastating fire that at midnight on Thursday enveloped the dormitory and hopefully intoxicated the children in their sleep, before burning them alive.
It is one of the biggest tragedies in Kenya in recent years, of those not directly caused by human hands, such as road accidents or the recent case of the victims of the so-called ‘fasting sect’ of Shakahola. Almost 500 bodies were buried in mass graves, convinced by a mad and ruthless preacher to fast in the hope of being able to see Jesus in paradise as soon as possible, before the world was taken over by the devil and turned into hell.
Unfortunately, on Thursday night, hell was already in Kenya and it fell on dozens of innocent young people, who knew little about emergency exits, strikes and Chinese loans. Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki visited the site and assured that there would be ‘full accountability for all those whose action or inaction contributed to this terrible loss’. He used much the same words more than a year ago, after the first dozens of bodies of the followers were found in the forest inland from Malindi, among them 129 children. The investigation ended a month and a half ago, the trial against Paul Mackenzie Nthenge and his alleged accomplices will take a long time, with all that is known about motive and probable direct or indirect perpetrators of the crimes. This too, unfortunately, is Africa.