Outside Utumishi Girls School in central Kenya, a crowd of parents stands in tense silence, clutching photographs, admission slips and worn exercise books. They have been here for hours, some for days, waiting for the one thing authorities have yet to give them: certainty.

Their daughters were asleep in an upstairs dormitory when a fierce blaze ripped through the building, killing 16 pupils and injuring dozens more. The fire spread so quickly through the crowded room of 135 bunk beds that many students were trapped before they could reach the exits.

What followed has been a second ordeal. The bodies of the 16 victims were taken to a government hospital morgue, burned beyond recognition. Officials say only DNA analysis can now establish who they are. Until that process is complete, parents must endure a limbo that feels both cruel and endless.

Among them is John Muiruri, searching for answers about his 13-year-old daughter, Nicole. He describes being shuttled between conflicting accounts of where the injured and dead were taken, and a wall of official silence that has deepened families’ anguish. For many, hope has given way to grim acceptance; they now simply want to know where their daughters’ remains lie.

Forensic teams have begun collecting DNA samples from relatives at the school, swabbing cheeks and recording details in makeshift registration areas. Disaster management officials say the condition of the bodies leaves them no choice. Visual identification, they insist, would be both unreliable and traumatic.

As investigators sift through the charred dormitory, police have arrested eight students on suspicion of involvement in planning and executing the blaze. Detectives are reviewing CCTV footage and interviewing classmates and teachers in an effort to piece together what happened and why.

The tragedy has triggered a sweeping response from education authorities. The school’s board of management has been dissolved, and the principal faces disciplinary action for alleged breaches of safety rules, including severe dormitory congestion and a locked exit door. Two teachers accused of knowing about planned unrest but failing to act are also under scrutiny.

The fire has once again exposed chronic safety failures in East African schools, where overcrowded dormitories, barred windows and a lack of firefighting equipment have turned too many buildings into death traps. For the families at Utumishi Girls, those systemic problems are no longer abstract policy issues, but the reason their children never came home.