Hospital sources in Bukavu now put the provisional death toll from Thursday’s school fire at 29 children, Radio Okapi reported late on 10 September. The broadcaster said about 20 pupils’ bodies were being held at Bukavu General Hospital and others at the university clinics. That is the highest locally sourced count published so far, but it is not yet a final reconciled victim list.
Other official figures remain lower. The South Kivu provincial government said 26 pupils—19 girls and seven boys—were killed, according to an updated Associated Press report. The AFC/M23 administration controlling Bukavu had earlier reported 24 deaths, comprising 19 girls and five boys. The changing totals show an emergency accounting still in progress, not evidence that any one newsroom can declare the final number settled.
Kinshasa’s Ministry of Education issued an official statement confirming deaths, including children, and multiple injuries, but its first numerical reference was at least 17. The ministry called that figure provisional, ordered a documented assessment of the affected schools and said the circumstances and cause require a rigorous, independent investigation. Congo’s national government does not control Bukavu, which makes a single verified register harder to produce.
The fire struck Furaha secondary school and Ujamaa primary school in Funu, in the densely built Cimpunda neighbourhood of Kadutu commune. Local administrator Moïse Lubala told the AP that the blaze began in a nearby house and spread into the adjoining schools. That account describes where the flames were first seen; it does not establish the ignition source or legal responsibility.
Accounts from the schools and hospitals explain why the toll rose. Lubala said pupils were trapped inside Furaha and that some suffocated. He described a narrow exit where children trying to escape were pushed over and trampled while others jumped through windows. A nurse at the Nyamulagira BDOM health centre told the AP that staff struggled to track the injured as patients arrived in large numbers.
The earlier AFC/M23 statement said 29 people were receiving treatment, including 21 in intensive care. Radio Okapi later reported that pupils affected by asphyxia were being treated across several hospitals. Neither source published a complete patient register, so the number of injured and their conditions should continue to be treated as developing information.
The destruction extended beyond the classrooms, but property estimates also diverge. Radio Okapi cited local notables who said nearly 50 homes burned; Reuters reported about 300 wooden houses based on the rebel administration’s account; Actualite.cd cited a local official who estimated nearly 500 homes and a clinic were affected. The defensible conclusion is that the fire displaced many families and damaged a wide residential area—not that one precise property count has been confirmed.
Radio Okapi said Bukavu sought help from the fire service in neighbouring Rwanda and reported that the city lacked suitable firefighting vehicles for an emergency of this scale. That account sharpens the public-safety question raised by the disaster: the speed of the blaze was worsened by dense construction, while limited response capacity reduced the city’s ability to contain it quickly. It does not, however, establish what started the fire.
That response has to cross a political and security divide. AFC/M23 seized Bukavu in February 2025 and runs its own administration there, while Congo’s internationally recognised government remains in Kinshasa. The national ministry stressed that children and teachers in occupied areas remain part of Congo’s education community. In practice, relief, verification and school support will depend on access and coordination among actors that do not share authority over the city.
The tragedy follows a series of damaging fires in Bukavu. Radio Okapi reported that more than 700 homes burned across the city during one week in early September, citing witnesses and civil-society groups. A separate 2–3 September fire destroyed two other schools and left more than 500 pupils without classrooms. Those incidents do not establish the cause of Thursday’s blaze, but they make fire prevention, emergency exits and safer construction an urgent public-safety question.
The immediate priorities are medical care, a transparent victim list, support for bereaved families, shelter for displaced residents and safe learning arrangements for surviving pupils. The longer test is whether an independent investigation can establish how the fire began and why so many children could not escape. Until authorities publish reconciled records, every casualty and damage figure should remain labelled provisional and attributed to the source that reported it.
