Education Minister Kalonzo Muyoka said the parents had set up a fund to raise money to pay for the burial. Mr Muyoka said that although most of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition, identifying the boys using DNA testing would be too expensive and too slow. The announcement came as doctors said four more students had died of their injuries. The boys had been receiving treatment for burns at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. They agreed to follow the example at Bombolulu near Mombasa in 1998 where 26 girls who perished in a similar incident were buried together.
Confusion remains over the final death toll.
Peter Kimanthi, a spokesman for the national police, said 64 boys were confirmed dead and nine others were still missing. They could still be somewhere hiding in the bush injured or in shock. But no accurate register of boys survived the fire, so it has been difficult to confirm who is missing and who is dead. One missing boy had turned up later slightly burnt and in shock. Autopsies have revealed that most of the pupils died after inhaling toxic fumes.