Reports
DESPERATE families and friends have told of their search for missing loved ones – including children and the elderly – in the Grenfell Tower inferno.
Among those feared killed were a five-year-old boy lost in the chaos as his mother led others to safety, and a family-of-five trapped on the 21st floor as a relative watched from the ground.
Others for whom hope was dwindling included a Syrian refugee who had come to Britain in search of a safe haven; an 84-year-old grandmother, thought to be the oldest victim; and a 12-year-old girl who telephoned her mother who works as a cleaner at night saying: “Mummy – come and get me.”
Distraught and in deep shock, Genet Shawo is still holding out a glimmer of hope that her five-year-old son Isaac Paulos will have somehow survived the hell of Grenfell Tower.
Choking back tears she said: “I will not fear the worst. I am still hoping and praying for him. He is a beautiful boy.”
Isaac became separated from his mother as she helped a group of children and parents escape the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday.
She said: “My neighbour said he would hold him and bring him down. But when I got outside I realised Isaac wasn’t there. I have been to all the emergency centres, all the hospitals and there is no news of him. I just want help – anyone who has any information can they please come forward.”
It is small comfort to Mrs Shawo that without her astonishing efforts and quick thinking many more lives might have been lost. Not only did she guide her neighbours down the staircase to safety, after wrapping three children’s heads in wet towels, she had earlier had the presence of mind to ring her friend Turufat Yilma, several floors below her, to alert her and her family – saving their lives in the process.
The ordeal for Mrs Shawo and her family began at around 1.30am when they were woken by the sound of a fire alarm, something many residents say they did not hear in time.
In what was to become a recurrent feature of the night’s events, they were instructed to stay inside their 18th floor flat until rescue came.
Mesi Chala, who has given The Daily Telegraph an account of what happened, said: “They tried to call the fire brigade on their phone and managed to escape from the flat, but the fire brigade told them to stay inside.”
However, after 30 minutes firefighters appeared to change tactics and began going door to door instructing the residents to get out immediately, including Mrs Shawo and her family.
Mrs Chala said: “I think the fire brigade realised then they could not control the fire and people had to get out.”
With the flames rising they prepared to leave via the staircase, now filling with smoke. Mrs Shawo’s neighbours joined them on the landing.
Her first thoughts appear to have been for the children in the group.
“As she was trying to help the children, an adult neighbour who was new to that floor said he would hold Isaac, while Paulos [his father] held their youngest son Lucas, who is three,” said Mesi, 39.
“Lucas was shouting and crying in Paulos’s arms. Genet guided them down the steps, staying behind them to make sure they got down.”
But when they stumbled out of Grenfell Tower, Mrs Shawo realised Isaac was no longer with them.
She fell sobbing into the arms of her sister who had by now rushed to the tower from her home in South Kensington, saying she could not find Isaac.
“The guy who was holding Isaac made it outside, but when Genet asked him where Isaac was he said he had last seen him inside on the stairs. He didn’t know which floor. He had lost him.”
The mother of 12-year old Jessica Urbano has told how her daughter phoned her as she returned home from a night shift. Adriana Urbano was returning from her job as an office cleaner when Jessica rang her to say there was a fire.
Mrs Urbano told The Telegraph: “Jessica had been asleep in our flat when something woke her – I don’t know if it was the smoke or a fire alarm – so she rang me at 1.39am as I was on my way home from work. She said: “‘Mum where are you? Mummy come and get me!’” Mrs Urbano said she urged Jessica to run down the stairs of the tower block and try to find a fire fighter to lead her to safety.
“I told her to get out of there as quickly as she could. I said ‘run as fast as you can’, but then the line cut out”.
One devastated man described the moment he watched a family member consumed by flames as he tried to reassure him on the phone. Mokhtar Ghamni, whose brother-in-law and his family lived on the 21st floor, raced to Grenfell Tower when he heard about the fire.
Mr Ghamni managed to reach his nephew Yasim El-wahabi on the phone, and could see him in the window as they spoke.
“He said ‘Uncle, we’re stuck’. I could see him from the window and could see the fire spreading towards them. Then I saw the fire boom into their flat and the phone line went down.”
Yasim, 21, his sisters Hoada, 16, and Mehdi, 8, remain unaccounted for, as well as their parents, Aziz El-wahabi and his wife Fouszia.
“The fire spread like petrol,” said Mr Ghamni. “I knew as soon as I saw it and realised they were still in the flat that they were all going to die.
“The police haven’t said anything but I know that they are dead.”
Mohammed al-haj Ali, 23, a Syrian refugee and engineering student who fled his war-torn country for a better life in the UK, remained among the missing. The engineering student was separated from his brother Omar as they escaped. Friends and family con- firmed Omar, a 25-year-old business student, is reportedly recovering in King’s College hospital.
However, Mohammed has not been heard from since.
The brothers fled Daraa in southern Syria three years ago. They were granted asylum in the UK.
Marjorie Bahhaj, a friend of the brothers, said: “This is horrible – after all he has been through and a place of safety leads to his death. From a government that starts war with its citizens to our government that neglects building regulations. It feels we as British let him down – he was supposed to be safe with us.”