He stands silently inside the charred building and cautiously rummages through burnt notebooks inside a metal box. At one moment, he pulls out a half-burnt book, opens it and examines it carefully before throwing it away.

Steven Niyigena is a Senior Three student at Byimana School of Sciences. He lost all his property in Sunday’s fire at Ruhango District based school. 

"I lost everything,” he said with a soft but sad voice. Niyigena lists clothes, notebooks, sanitary utensils and his mattress, among his belongings that vanished into the fire.

He said the now blackened metal box belonged to him and that it contained his senior one and senior two notebooks.

The student is standing inside charred hall, which served as a dormitory for male students until this Sunday, when a fire broke out at around midday reducing the block to ashes.

Soot-stained and crooked metal beds as well as leftovers from charred bags, clothes and notebooks are what remain from the property of the dorm’s 192 occupants. The roof of the building was literary burnt away, with remains of timber frameworks and iron sheets falling inside the hall.

Glasses on the dorm’s windows were shattered and blown away by the surging inferno. The walls of the building, blackened by the smoke, testify of how raging the fire was.

‘This is sad’ 

"When I first heard of the [recent] inferno, I could not believe my ears,” Bonheur Iradukunda, another affected student, said. "This is sad.”

Sunday’s fire broke out at around noon while students were watching inter-school games. The dormitories were locked when the fire broke out—the same way they were when the first two infernos began, according to school authorities.

"It broke out spontaneously. We were caught by surprise,” the head teacher, Brother Alphonse Gahima said. "It was burning hot and spread fast.”

Within minutes the fire raged uncontrollably as area residents joined in an effort to put it out, Gahima said. It was finally contained hours later when fire-fighters from the Police joined in.

Unfortunately, no property was saved from the raging dormitory fire. 

It is the third time that a dormitory catches fire at the school in 40 days, destroying students’ property.

First, on April 23, fire gutted a building housing over 270 O-Level students prompting school authorities to send back home about 400 students as it improvised their accommodation.

And, then mid last month, fire broke out again destroying property of an estimated 155 students.

Arrests made

Following the second incident, suspicion over what is behind the fires mounted with many – including parents and officials—advancing the hypothesis of arson. 

And the third fire did nothing than vindicating this school of thought.

Though investigations were launched following the second incident, Police sources told this paper that detectives are yet to unravel the mystery in the cause of the fires.

"Investigations are still ongoing and they will continue until the real cause is unearthed,” Hubert Gashagaza, the Southern Region Police spokesperson, said.

"We consider this a serious issue and we give it the weight it deserves. We shall not relent until the culprits or reasons [behind the fires] is found,” he added.

Sources at the school told The New Times that following Sunday’s incident, Police arrested an unspecified number of suspects.

Gashagaza confirmed the arrests, but he declined to divulge details of the case. 

"We are yet to reach to any conclusion,” Gashagaza said.

Parents worry

The recent incident has increased fears among parents over the safety of their children. Many of them, who reported at the school to comfort their children, told this paper that measures should be put up to ensure that such incident never happens again.

When The New Times visited the school on Monday, scores of parents kept arriving and meeting with the school’s authority and their kids.

Ibrahim Ruzagiriza, a parent, expressed serious concerns over the fact that efforts to unlock what is behind the infernos seem to have yielded nothing so far.

He said: "I have a lot of unanswered questions regarding the infernos. There have been three incidents and in the same circumstances, we are not sure that it will not happen again.”

Ruzagiriza warned of serious impact on students’ performance.

Pastor Antoine Rutayisire of the Anglican Church called for "thorough investigations to ascertain the real cause of the infernos.”