Grenfell’s sister survivors
THEY are just six and eight years old, two little sisters lying two beds apart in a London hospital. One is in a coma and the other so traumatised she is under sedation.
But they are alive and for now, that is enough.
The little Belkadi girls, Malek, 8, and Tamzin, 6, miraculously escaped the horror of the Grenfell Tower blaze, making it out of their 20th floor flat gravely injured, but alive.
Their mother Farah Hamdan and father Omar Belkadi, and their baby sister Leena, just six months old, are missing, feared dead.
They are among more than 50 residents who have not been heard from since the fire gutted the 24-storey tower in west London in the early hours of Wednesday.
Relatives found the girls, cared for in the same ward but unidentified, 24 hours after the fire.
Cousin Adel Chaoui said red tape was preventing families being reunited with injured loved ones.
He said the girls were lying two beds apart, with hospital staff having no idea they were related.
“My family has been round all the hospitals asking for anyone who matches the descriptions,” he told the London Daily Telegraph.
“One took pity on us and gave us information and lo and behold it was one of the children who was missing.
“Our brother is wandering around the wards and sees a a child two beds down and found that it was her sibling.
“One of them is in a coma, and the other wouldn’t stop screaming because she was so traumatised so has been sedated.
“The hospitals had no idea who these children were.”
The Grenfell Tower is owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a giant 1970s housing block looming over the nearby row houses and chic cafes in one of the richest boroughs of London, justst down the road from Kensingtonn Palace.
Its 120 flats were home to 60000 people, the majority off them migrants, mainly Muslims from north Africa. Many were awake for a Ramadan meal before attending the local mosque for early prayers, so spotted the fire early and were able to warn their neighbours.
The tower had no fire sprinklers, no central alarm and one single fire escape in the centre of the building.
The first person named as a victim of the fire was a Syrian refugee, who escaped the brutal Assad regime, but could not escape Wednesday’s fire.
Mohammad al-Haj Ali, 23, and his brother Omar, 25, were making their way down the fire escape in the centre of the building, but were overwhelmed by the smoke and chaos.
Mohammad let go of his brother’s hand and returned to their 14th floor flat, where he spent the next two hours calling family and friends in Syria. The civil engineering student at the University of West London sent one final, heartbreaking message which read: “The fire is here now, goodbye”.
An Italian couple, Marco Gottardi and Gloria Trevisan, both architects, and both aged 27, recently moved into Grenfell Tower after travelling to London looking for work, and were trapped in their flat on the 23rd floor.
They called their parents and friends in Italy, their calls becoming increasingly desperate, then they disappeared.