SHADOW OF TRAGEDY
FAMILIES CLOSE TO GRENFELL STILL LIVE IN CONSTANT FEAR
NAOMI Lewis stares up at the charred remains of Grenfell Tower, then shakes her head.
This concrete Grim Reaper, a hellish scar on the landscape, triggers truly awful memories.
“When I was a kid I used to sneak into the tower with my friends to play hide and seek,” Naomi says, a smile briefly sweeping across her face as she recalls those carefree days.
But it quickly fades as she adds: “Now when I look up I still can’t believe what has happened. It is so terrible.”
Naomi, 22, is just one of a handful of people still living in fear in the shadow of Grenfell’s burnt-out ruins.
Today they reveal their heartrending struggles to return to normal life in their nearby homes almost three months after the blaze in the early hours of June 14 killed 87 residents in North Kensington, West London.
One family is so terrified the blackened shell will collapse, they take it in turns to stay awake at night – keeping watch. Another family huddle together on the living room floor because the kids are too scared to sleep alone.
An alarm has sounded three times to warn of movement in the tower.
SCARRED
Each time panic spreads through the estate, with neighbours banging on doors telling people to get out.
This is a community left mentally scarred. Many have lost friends. Many have post traumatic stress disorder.
The estate now lies eerily empty. The playground is deserted. The only noise is from workmen decorating smokedamaged homes.
Gone are the residents of Grenfell Tower and 180 families from neighbouring walkways who have been put up in hotels.
Those who have stayed coped for six weeks without hot water. Now a temporary boiler offers a limited supply. But there is still no gas. So no heating. “When there’s no hot water, we just boil a kettle,” said Naomi, who lives on the Lancaster West estate with her dad Norman. She added: “His close friend lived on the 21st floor. I called him Uncle Moses. They haven’t found his remains, but we know he’s dead.
“Some days my dad will cry. He doesn’t sleep any more and is having counselling.
“We could have been put up in a hotel, but Dad doesn’t want to go. This is home. He has lived here since before I was born. “But now it’s like a ghost town.” Iman Saleh, 50, has also stayed with her husband Aly, 50, daughters Samira, 27, and Suzanne, 26, and son Adam, five.
We met her as she returned from a counselling session with Adam, who is haunted by Grenfell.
Iman said: “He lost his teacher Nadia Choucair in the fire. He has nightmares. He comes to me at night, sometimes he is crying. He says he doesn’t want to see the fire any more. Sometimes he tells me he saw Nadia in his dream.
“My eldest daughter went to school with Mariem Elgwahry, who was just 27 and died in the fire with her mother.
“There was nothing left of her, just one or two teeth. That’s all they had left to put in her coffin. It is heartbreaking.”
Iman told how she and her husband take it in turns to stay awake at night and keep watch in case another fire breaks out or the tower collapses.
“We are scared,” she said. “We can’t sleep any more. This is how we live now. We worry the tower will collapse. We keep hearing that it has shifted. Everyone lives in fear that it will come down on us. But we stay because this is our home, our community. But people don’t want to come back until they can feel safe.
“I overheard a Brazilian lady asking the council to put it in writing that it was safe for them to live here because only then would she come back with her kids.
SCREAMING
“But the council wouldn’t. Instead they renewed her hotel stay until December.”
Saira Malik, 55, has been put up in a hotel with son Fahd, 34, and returns only to do their laundry and check the post.
“I can’t come back,” she said. “I can still hear the voices of the people screaming out for help. I can hear their pain. Women shouting to us to rescue their babies. It was like the worst horror movie, but it was real life.”
Carer Hindi Ali, 32, is also in a hotel, but returned home after collecting her children from school so she could make them a home-cooked meal.
She said: “The council wants us to move back. They say there is nothing wrong with our home. But we don’t want to come back.
“We saw people die in front of us. My kids are scared. When we go inside they start shaking. They panic. They think there is going to be a fire here as well.”
Her six-year-old daughter’s best friend Yaqub Hashim, also six, was killed with his parents, sister and brother. Hindi
I look up and still can’t believe what happened. It is terrible... it’s like a ghost town now
NAOMI LEWIS WHO LIVES IN THE SHADOW OF GRENFELL
went on: “My daughter keeps asking where Yaqub is. I can’t look at the tower. It is too much of a painful reminder.”
Mum-of-four Fatima Alsadi, 29, from Syria, lost five friends in the fire.
She wept as she told of her last call with Rania Ibrahim, who was trapped on the 24th floor with her two children.
“I was looking up at her window and it was ablaze,” said Fatima. “I said to her: ‘Please come down’. But she said there was too much smoke. She asked me to pray for them.”
Fatima lives with taxi driver husband Ahmad and their four children aged from two to 10. She added: “I have asked for a counsellor to help my kids. They are constantly saying they don’t want to die. We all sleep together in the sitting room. We have put all our mattresses together. It’s the only way we can make the kids feel safe.
“My daughter insists that the window always stays open so she can escape if there’s a fire. She has dreams that the building is falling on her. My children are terrified the tower will fall down.
TRAUMATISED
“We have asked to be moved back to a hotel. We don’t feel safe here. We can’t come back until they remove the tower.”
Delivery driver Liridon Shaljani, 35, who lives on the estate with his wife Zana and their two children, said the horrors of June 14 were worse than what they witnessed back home in Kosovo. He said: “We lived through a war. But this was much worse. Every morning we wake up we are relieved to be alive.”
For retired caterer Joyce Evans, Lancaster West has been her home for 33 years and she will never leave.
But she too remains traumatised. “The screaming is still in my ears,” she said.
“Every time I go to my door I see the tower. Two of my late husband’s friends went in the fire.
“We were a tight community. I don’t think it will ever be the same.”
Kensington and Chelsea Council said Grenfell Tower has been fitted with sensors to monitor structural movement. Up to five millimetres movement is normal in a tower of that size. But if it shifts more than that an alarm warns all rescuers to evacuate.
The alarm has sounded three times, but the council said there hadn’t been a need to evacuate local residents.
Rescue teams looking for the remains of victims hope to complete a search of the upper floors in November.
A police probe will establish whether corporate manslaughter charges will be brought against housing officials in relation to fitted cladding believed to have accelerated the blaze.
And the tower is expected to be demolished next summer... finally lifting the shadow of death.
nicola.fifield@trinitymirror.com
I can’t come back... I still hear the screaming, the pain. It was like the worst horror film
SAIRA MALIK WITNESSED FIRE HORROR WITH HER SON FAHD