Twelve killed as fire guts school dormitory

At least 12 children were killed and others injured overnight when a fire gutted the dormitory of a school in western Uganda, police said on Friday.

The fire is believed to have started when an abandoned candle set fire to the bed sheets of a student at Islamic Kabarole East Primary School, about 300 km west of the capital, Kampala. The school had been relying on candles because of widespread load shedding, or power rationing, across the country.

"There was load shedding last night, and one of the children slept before blowing out a candle. The fire caught a bed sheet, and it spread out to the dormitory," said police spokesman Patrick Onyango. He said as many as 70 children between the ages of seven and 13 were sleeping in the dormitory when the fire broke out. Some were rescued, but others were trapped in the inferno.

Musana Munene, the Kabarole district police commander, said the fire had destroyed the building's support shafts, causing the iron roof to cave in. "Police surgeons are at the scene now. Some bodies have been identified while we go through the rubble to look for more," he said.

Munene said the number of children who had been killed or injured could rise. "We don't know the exact number of those injured because some parents came in after the accident and took away their children, while others decided to help the children of their friends by taking them away for treatment," he added.