Hundreds of mourners gathered in Bukavu on Monday around rows of small coffins, some clutching photographs of the victims, to bid farewell to at least 26 children killed in a school fire that devastated the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city last week. UNICEF confirmed the death toll and reported that a further 25 children were injured, with 21 patients at one point requiring intensive care.

The fire broke out at approximately 9am local time on Thursday, 11 September, as pupils were attending lessons at Ujamaa Primary School in the Chimpunda neighbourhood of Bukavu's densely populated Kadutu commune. The school's wooden structure was quickly engulfed in flames, causing some children to jump from upper floors while others stampeded towards exits, resulting in some pupils being trampled. A report by the Congolese education ministry indicated that three fires ignited at locations roughly 500 metres apart, with a number of victims dying from asphyxiation. Beyond the school, the blaze tore through surrounding residential areas, destroying an estimated 300 homes and leaving dozens more people injured.

The human cost was searingly personal. One mother, Nzigire Solange, described preparing her nine-year-old daughter for school that Thursday morning — giving her tea, washing her, dressing her in her uniform and handing her her school bag — before receiving a phone call hours later telling her the child had died. Civil society representatives in South Kivu called for psychological support for affected families, some of whom lost two, three, or even four children in the disaster, and urged that the tragedy not be politicised by any side.

Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province in eastern DRC, has been under the control of the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 armed group since February 2025. The M23 administration declared three days of mourning and initially reported 24 deaths, before UNICEF revised the figure upward to 26. AFC/M23 coordinator Corneille Naanga attended the funeral ceremony held at a local school before the victims were interred at the Ruzizi cemetery. Both the M23 authorities and the government in the DRC capital Kinshasa have called for an investigation into the cause of the fire, which remains unknown.

The scale of the disaster has prompted urgent calls for structural reform. The AFC/M23 administration pledged to improve fire prevention by identifying high-risk zones and strengthening protections around schools. Civil society voices echoed this, with one community representative arguing that fire prevention must become a core component of how Congolese cities are planned and managed — a demand that underscores the broader vulnerability of densely built urban areas across the country to such tragedies.