Lamu, KENYA: Parents at Lamu Boys secondary school in Lamu now want the school administration to seek the help of a witch-doctor in order to unearth the identity of students who torched dormitories at the school last week.
On Thursday last week,the school was closed indefinitely after a fire razed yet another dorm.
The fire was the third in a week.
The school board ascertained that the property lost in the latest inferno was more than Sh.2 Million.
Students lost personal belongings while hundreds of beds and mattresses also went up in flames.
Earlier last week,students had torched yet another dormitory and destroyed property worth over Sh.500,000.
A day later,the students set the head boy’s cubicle on fire destroying several beds,mattresses and other personal effects of their colleagues.
However, speaking at the school on Monday,parents said it will be extremely difficult for the school management to ascertain who was responsible for the fires unless they do something out of the ordinary.
The parents now want the school to invoke the services of a powerful witchdoctor who will help identify the culprits.
They also want the school to bring in a traditional oath admistrator who will also help catch the guilty ones so that they can be punished.
The parents said the frequent fires were proof that the students were not only indiscipline but also a danger to others.
During the latest fire last week,three students were arrested by police, interrogated and later released a day later.
Reports from some of the teachers at the school however indicated that the police didn’t make much headway since those arrested refuse to reveal details of their acts or even the names of others involved.
Parents however say its impossible to achieve much that way since the students will most likely not mention their friends and colleagues who were also involved.
“The school must now bring in a witchdoctor and oath administrator.This ones will find out culprits even if they refuse to talk or admit it.That way this matter will be put to rest quickly and the culprits will be punished.Using police on such unruly students doesn’t work because they wont talk,”said Mohamed Shee,a parent at the school.
The parents said the students were now accustomed to the trend used whenever there are fires at the school and hence putting them in a comfort zone.
“They know the trend and used to it now.They burn a dorm or any building,then police are called,then some are arrested and later released and the matter is forgotten until it recurs yet again.But this time around we want a change in tact.We are ready to invite witchdoctors here so they cant just point out who the unruly ones are.We cant keep paying fines for destructions each year because of a few boys,”said Mariam Mohamed,a parent.
However the PTA chair at the school Feiswal Abdalla called for calm on the part of the parents and said the school board was on the matter.
“We will let them know our decisions and plan as a school board once we have a way forward.In the meantime we call for calm until investigations are over,”he said.
