Student killed, 141 injured in Kenya university stampede (Photo : Twitter/@itrucktv)
One Kenyan student was killed in a stampede on Sunday on the campus of the University of Nairobi while 141 were injured. According to an official, the students mistook a number of accidental explosions for an extremist attack, New York Times reported.
Peter Mbithi, Vice Chancellor of University of Nairobi told The Associated Press that a third-year male student was killed in the incident. He said that the student was killed after he fell from the fifth floor of his dormitory, according to Irish Times.
On the other hand, injured students have been taken to hospitals for immediate treatment, he mentioned as well.
The students' panic was brought by the electrical transformer that exploded, which was mistaken to be another attack by Islamic extremists as there were threats of assault since the Garissa University College massacre on Apr 2 by Somalia's al-Shabab rebels where 148 people were killed.
"It was around 5 a.m. and the transformer at the campus exploded about four or five times which made students mistake it for an attack," Mbithi said, describing the incident. "Most of them jumped out of their hostels thinking it was an al-Shabab attack ... There was no attack but because of what happened in Garissa the other day, they mistook it for an attack," he added.
The horror started when terrified screams were heard from the women's wing, which spread the panic through the men's wing where students woke up and scrambled to get out.
Mbithi said that most of the injuries of the students were caused by jumping out from the upper floors of their dormitories.
