{"id":60865,"date":"2020-02-05T10:11:11","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T02:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=60865"},"modified":"2020-02-05T10:11:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T02:11:13","slug":"kenya-thirteen-children-killed-in-primary-school-stampede","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=60865","title":{"rendered":"Kenya: Thirteen children killed in primary school stampede"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

NAIROBI, Feb 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 13 children died and dozens of
others were injured in a stampede as they left their primary school in Kenya, local police said, with investigators still trying to ascertain
the cause of the tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police have launched an inquiry into what caused the crowd of students to panic, leading to the crush at around 5 pm Monday at the school in the western town of Kakamega.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the aftermath of the stampede, the police cordoned off the school and
took statements from the teaching staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images broadcast by local media showed parents gathered in front of the
emergency ward of a hospital in the town, waiting for news of their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe lost 13 children in this stampede and others are in hospital due to
injuries,\u201d Kakamega\u2019s police chief David Kabena told reporters at the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have launched an investigation to establish what exactly happened,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the children\u2019s mothers blamed the teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose who survived said they were running because there were teachers who were beating them, and that is why they were escaping and fell on each other,\u201d the mother said in an interview with local media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the children were mostly in grade five, aged between 10 and 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corporal punishment is banned in Kenya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kakamega Primary School did not immediately comment on the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are devastated by the tragedy that has hit Kakamega Primary School
this (Monday) evening,\u201d said Kenya\u2019s Vice President William Ruto in a post on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur prayers, love and thoughts to the families and relatives of the
victims of the misfortune.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenya Red Cross said on Twitter that it was setting up psychological
support services, as well as a \u201ctracing desk\u201d to help relatives locate
potentially affected students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Red Cross said 39 students had been admitted to a local hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St John\u2019s Ambulance meanwhile tweeted that at least 14 students had been
killed and more than 50 injured, including two who were in an intensive care unit. Some 37 had been treated and discharged from hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tragedy comes just two days after 20 people were killed in a stampede
at an open-air evangelical Christian church service over the border in
Tanzania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, nine students were killed by a fire at a girls\u2019 high school in
the Kibera neighbourhood of Kenya\u2019s capital Nairobi. — NNN-AGENCIES
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Feb 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 13 children died and dozens ofothers were injured in a stampede as they left their primary school in Kenya, local police said, with investigators still trying to ascertainthe cause of the tragedy. The police have launched an inquiry into what caused the crowd of students to panic, leading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60865"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}