Mom who lost five in 2007: Pray

THERE ARE PRAYERS, but no easy answers.

Ten years after Manthia Magassa saw a fire ravage her Bronx home and rip away the lives of her five young children she grieves for the families of the 12 people killed in Thursday night’s horror blaze.

“I’m so sorry for their loss. I know it’s not easy. It happened to me — five children, one day,” Magassa said in the rebuilt Woodycrest Ave. home that was the site of the blaze in March 2007 that also killed four children from another family and their mother.

“Anything God do, you have to accept it,” Magassa, 46, said as a smoke detector chirped in the background Friday. She noticed earlier Friday morning that she needed to change the batteries, she said.

Magassa remembers everything about the night she lost her children Bilaly, 1; Djama, 3; Abudubacary, 5; Mahamadou, 8; and Bandiougou, 11.

Her kids went to bed early and Magassa was watching TV when a fire started in the basement. Her husband, Mousssa, was in their native Mali at the time. The couple came to America in 1980.

Authorities said a space heater’s electrical cord ignited the fire.

She remembered trying to open locked doors as the lights cut out. “We could not come in to save some people,” she said.

It took two years to restore the orange-brick four-story building, which is about 5 miles from the Belmont building that burned Thursday night. Staying in the house was difficult, she said — but it’s what she wanted.

Two of her children survived the inferno and Magassa gave birth to a son shortly after the blaze who turns 10 in a few weeks.

“That’s good and I thank God for that,” she said. Her Islamic faith kept her afloat.

“I didn’t know where is my life, what is my life,” she said of the days and months after losing her children. “It’s not easy. I know it’s not easy.”