BUDO (Uganda), April 15: Eighteen children and an adult burned to death when an overnight fire engulfed their dormitory near the Ugandan capital, police said on Tuesday.

“At 2200 hours (1900 GMT), we were alerted that a dormitory caught fire in Budo Junior School. The death toll is now 19. It was a female dormitory with girls aged nine to 12,” police spokesman Judith Nabakoba said.

“We are still pulling bodies out of the burnt dormitory,” located 30 kilometres from Kampala, she added.

It was not clear how many children were sleeping at the dorm at the time of the fire, but survivors said the death toll could be much higher. Some reported seeing 25 bodies. Some bodies were burnt beyond recognition in the dormitory, which was scattered with burnt-out remains of triple-deck beds and children’s personal effects, an AFP journalist reported.

Several rooms were burned to ashes and the bedframes reduced to a molten mass in one of the most horrific accidents of its kind in the east African nation.

—AFP