I see faces of the dead from Grenfell in the street

Fire survivor tells inquiry of trauma

A TRAUMATISED survivor of the Grenfell inferno has spoken of how she still sees the faces of its victims on strangers in the street.

Hiwot Dagnachew, who escaped from the fifth floor, told the inquiry into the disaster she still struggles to cope.

She said: “I am not ready to accept all these people have gone. I keep seeing those who have died in the faces of strangers in the street.

“I will walk in the direction of home to the tower and when I get there see it has been boarded up.”

Hiwot added that lives could have been saved if a firefighter had acted on her telling them the blaze had spread to her flat and was not just outside the block.

Meron Mekonnen, who fled the 19th floor of the tower on June 14 last year, told of the fire’s impact on her daughters, then aged six and four. She said of one girl: “She breaks down a lot and we are trying to avoid everything that will remind her of the fire. [She] does not really understand what happened, as she is very young, but she talks about death and heaven. She asks, ‘Why can’t we go to heaven if this is where the other children have gone?’.”

The inquiry also heard a polio sufferer used crutches and dragged himself down nine flights of stairs to escape. Maher Khoudair said he fell twice and estimated he took up to 20 minutes to get to the ground floor. He said: “I was going down the stairs on my back, sitting on my bottom, and then I managed to go down the stairs using my crutches. “Coming down and thinking, ‘I am going to be pushed and fall headfirst on the stairs’... I am thinking, ‘This is it, my life’s over’.” CCTV showed him exiting the stairwell and leaving the building on crutches at 1.36am.

The blaze at Grenfell Tower in West London killed 72 people.

The inquiry at Holborn Bars in Central London continues.

HORROR Tower on fire in June last year DIFFICULT EXIT Polio sufferer Maher on crutches ORDEAL GOES ON Hiwot tells inquiry of her trauma

IMPACT Meron