“Ma’am, I’m being trampled!” The children’s cries still ring in the ears of Alice Ambika Musafiri, a teacher in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. “My child, I can’t reach you,” she shouted back, telling them to wait while she pulled out the one in her arms. She told The Associated Press she could not save everyone, and that some students were suffocated by the crowd.
A fire and stampede at a school in the city on Thursday, September 10, 2026 killed at least 26 children, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Friday, according to AFP. Another 25 children were injured, UNICEF said in a statement.
How it unfolded
The blaze began around 9:00 am (0700 GMT) while the children were in lessons. Pupils rushed to escape, and the crush that followed did much of the damage.
AP later reported a slightly different picture of the start. Local neighborhood administrator Moïse Lubala told the agency the fire began at a house and spread to two adjoining schools. Several students were trapped inside Furaha secondary school, he said, and some suffocated. The cause is unknown. By the time of a mass funeral on Monday, September 14, local authorities put the number of dead at no fewer than 27. Medical staff were struggling to count the injured, Lubala said, because there were so many.
A hillside of wooden houses
Bukavu is the capital of South Kivu province and sits on the shores of Lake Kivu. It is known for wooden houses built on hillsides, where deadly fires often break out. AFP said Thursday’s blaze devastated a wide, densely built stretch of one such slope, and residents were left picking through debris of charred houses and crumpled sheets of metal.
Specialists say blazes are common in Congolese cities, which largely lack firefighting equipment. Tightly packed buildings and illegal connections to the power grid are frequent causes. The week before, a fire at a wedding in the capital, Kinshasa, killed 12 people. Another blaze in October killed 14 people in Bukavu, mostly children.
Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have controlled the city since February 2025, after a campaign to seize swathes of mineral-rich eastern DRC. On Friday the group declared three days of mourning. Funerals were expected on Saturday, AFP reported, and on Monday hundreds of people gathered for the mass service, where families wept and officials laid wreaths.
Sources
- 26 children dead in DR Congo school fire stampede (AFP)
- Hundreds gather in eastern Congo to mourn victims of school fires (AP)
