School Fire, Stampede Kill 26 Children in Bukavu, DRC

At least 26 children died and 25 were injured after a fire and stampede tore through a primary school in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

A fire broke out around 9:00 am on Thursday at Ujamaa Primary School in Bukavu while children were in lessons, and at least 26 children were killed, according to UNICEF. Another 25 children were injured. Some pupils jumped from upper floors to escape, and a stampede followed as students rushed the doors, with education ministry inspectors reporting that children were trampled after falling and that those trapped inside died from asphyxiation. A local official, Patrice Budogyi, told AFP that a fire of unknown origin broke out near the school in the Bagira district.

Teacher Simon Kasamira, who was being treated at a clinic, told AFP that he suddenly heard students screaming in the middle of class, saw some jumping from the upper floors and others fleeing through the doors, before the wooden-plank school was engulfed in flames as parents arrived searching for their children. According to Sada Elbalad, nurse Christophe Zigashani said a nearby clinic received around 50 students and several teachers with severe smoke inhalation, ten students arrived already dead, four died at the scene, and 27 people, including two teachers, were transferred in critical condition to other hospitals in the city.

The education ministry's inspector report said fires broke out simultaneously at three different locations about 500 metres apart, and the ministry and a local official said the fire destroyed hundreds of homes. Residents were seen picking through wreckage of charred homes and twisted metal sheets on a densely built hillside. Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu, is known for wooden houses built along steep hillsides, and specialists say blazes are common in Congolese cities because of closely spaced buildings, illegal power-grid connections, and inadequate firefighting equipment.

Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, has been controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group since February 2025, after it intensified a campaign to seize mineral-rich eastern DRC. M23 declared three days of mourning on Friday and said the victims comprised 20 girls and six boys, with funerals expected on Saturday. The tragedy sparked a wave of grief across a region mired in more than three decades of conflict, and authorities in Kinshasa and M23 have both called for an investigation into the cause of the blaze.

The education ministry expressed profound sadness, noting the tragedy followed a particularly concerning series of fires in Bukavu, where an October blaze killed 14 people, most of them children. Last week a wedding fire in the capital Kinshasa killed 12 people. Congolese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege called for urgent measures to provide humanitarian aid, writing on X that a tragedy which shattered the dreams and futures of so many children cannot become just another news story. Investigators now face pressure to determine what caused the simultaneous fires.