The Bakersfield Californian

Bronx fire victims’ funeral draws huge outpouring of grief

BY BOBBY CAINA CALVAN

NEW YORK — The caskets were brought one by one — all 15 of them — on a frigid winter day, as hundreds of mourners filled a Bronx mosque Sunday to bid farewell to those who died exactly a week ago trying to escape their smokefilled apartment building.

Many hundreds more huddled outside, peering into the mosque’s windows or watching on big-screen televisions, to pay their respects after New York City’s deadliest fire in three decades.

“One week they were with us ... now they’re gone,” said Musa Kabba, the imam at the Masjid-Ur-Rahmah mosque, where many of the deceased had prayed. “Last Sunday it happened, and today we are about to bury these families. It is hard.”

In all, 17 people died in the fire, which authorities said was sparked by a faulty space heater in a thirdfloor apartment. Among the dead were eight children as young as 2, whose tiny caskets underscored the day’s loss.

All of those who lost their lives collapsed and were overcome by smoke while trying to descend the building’s stairwell.

Sunday’s mass funeral at the Islamic Cultural Center capped a week of prayers and mourning within a close-knit community hailing from West Africa, most with connections to the small country of Gambia — where four of the victims would be buried, officials said. Eleven of the victims were transported to a cemetery in New Jersey.

Earlier in the week, burial services were held for two children at a mosque in Harlem.

“This is a sad situation. But everything comes from God. Tragedies always happen, we just thank Allah that we can all come together,” said Haji Dukuray, the uncle of Haja Dukuray, who died with three of her children and her husband.

Men and women alike wept openly as six children and nine adults were given final rites before their caskets were returned to the hearses.

NATION & WORLD

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2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://bakersfield.pressreader.com/article/281676848277837

Alberta Newspaper Group