Vatican, 08 September, 2024 / 10:51 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis is spiritually united with the people of God in Kenya, who are grieving following the September 5 inferno at Hillside Academy Endarasha in the country’s Catholic Archdiocese of Nyeri that resulted in the death of 21 boys dead and many more injuries and destruction.
In his Saturday, September 7 telegram addressed to the Local Ordinary of Nyeri, Archbishop Anthony Muheria, which the Vatican Secretary of State signed, Holy Father commends the souls of the pupils, who passed on to God’s “loving mercy”.
“His Holiness Pope Francis was deeply saddened to be informed of the loss of young life that occurred during a fire at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in the County of Nyeri,” the telegram that Pietro Cardinal Parolin signed reads in part.
The pupils were reportedly asleep during the night of September 5 when the inferno erupted. The death toll following the fire at the dormitory that housed Grade 5-8 pupils had risen to 21 by Sunday, September 8.
Bodies of 19 pupils were recovered from the scene while two more pupils reportedly succumbed to their injuries in hospital, Kenya’s government spokesman, Isaac Mwaura, has been quoted as saying about the tragedy at the dormitory that housed 156 boys, describing the incident at “a catastrophe beyond our imagination." 70 boys are yet to be accounted for.