Fire has gutted two dormitories at Leos Junior school primary in Masaka Municipality killing five pupils. It broke out in Damian and Constance dormitories in the wee hours of this morning. Both dormitories have been accommodating about 150 nursery and primary four pupils. Noah Sserunjogi, the Southern Regional Police Spokesperson who is also a parent in the school, says the bodies of the fire pupils were burnt beyond recognition.
He says that police has taken the bodies to Masaka regional hospital for a postmortem and identification. Sserunjogi explains that it is still difficult to identify the pupils because of several parents have congested the areas to establish whether their children are alive. Darlington Kiyingi, the head master Leos Junior school says that he got a call from one of the guards on duty at around 04:00am.
Kiyingi says that he rushed to the school with some teachers to rescue the pupils but found a section of the dormitory cut off. He says that Grace Asiimwe, one of the school matrons was also burnt on the shoulders while struggling to rescue some of the children. Asimwe is admitted at Masaka referral hospital. Kiyingi says that it is still early to identify the deceased because some of the pupils were smuggled out of the school by their parents and others were scattered in Nyendo town ship.
Lyndon Ssuna, a survivor of the fire says that they were woken up by the matron only to find the dormitory burning. Hundreds of parents stormed the school early morning to pick their children. In 2010, a similar fire broke out in the school destroying two dormitories.
