Fire Kills at Least 24 Children at Two Schools in Rebel-Held Bukavu

At least 24 children were killed on Thursday 10 September when a fire swept through two schools and hundreds of homes in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a city that has been under rebel control since early 2025.

The dead were 19 girls and five boys, according to figures reported from the city, and dozens more people were injured. The fire broke out in the morning in the Chimpunda neighbourhood of Kadutu as pupils were arriving for lessons, and spread rapidly through closely packed wooden houses.

The flames engulfed Ujamaa primary school and Furaha secondary school and destroyed more than 300 homes, leaving hundreds of families without shelter. The fire was brought under control by the end of the day.

A stampede in the smoke

Many of the casualties appear to have occurred in the rush to escape. A local official, Patrice Buduge, said the panic forced students "to trample over one another", and that many lost consciousness. A nurse, Christophe Zigashane, said his clinic alone received about 50 pupils suffering from smoke inhalation, some of them in a critical condition.

Lawrence Kanyuka, spokesperson for the AFC/M23 rebel movement that runs the city, said 29 people were being treated in local medical facilities, 21 of them in intensive care. The cause of the fire has not been established and an investigation has been opened. Local media reported several recent fires in Bukavu, including one on the previous Sunday.

A city under rebel administration

AFC/M23 seized Bukavu in February 2025, weeks after capturing Goma, the capital of neighbouring North Kivu. United Nations experts and the Congolese government say the movement is backed by Rwanda, an accusation Kigali rejects. Since then Bukavu has been run by the rebels, beyond the reach of ministries in Kinshasa.

That shapes the response. Health facilities in eastern Congo were already stretched by conflict, displacement and disease, and the city faces an ongoing humanitarian crisis with limited access to essential services. Emergency teams deployed by the rebel administration worked to contain the blaze, ambulances carried the injured away, and residents joined rescue efforts and tried to salvage belongings. Local authorities have appealed for assistance for bereaved families and those who lost their homes.

Why it matters

Children at risk: the fire struck at the start of the school day, when classrooms and the surrounding streets were at their most crowded.
Dense housing: tightly packed wooden homes on Bukavu's hillsides allow fire to spread quickly and make access for emergency crews difficult.
Stretched services: clinics already under strain now face dozens of burn and smoke-inhalation cases, many involving children.
Displacement: families who lost their homes join a population already uprooted by years of fighting in the Kivus.
Accountability: with the city outside government control, questions of fire safety, investigation and compensation fall to a rebel administration.

What to watch

The number of dead could change as the injured are treated, and the findings of the investigation will be closely followed, particularly whether the recent series of fires in the city points to a common cause. Relief for more than 300 households will require shelter, food and school places at a time when humanitarian funding for eastern Congo is already under pressure.

There is also a political dimension. Kinshasa does not recognise the rebel administration in Bukavu, and how, or whether, national authorities and international agencies are able to support the victims will be a test of how civilians in rebel-held territory are cared for when disaster strikes.

For the families of Chimpunda, the immediate reality is simpler and far harder: children who left home for school on Thursday morning did not return.

Image: Kimmyfari via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0