Victims of concert bombing revealed
Families, friends pay tribute to blast casualties
At least 22 people died in Monday night’s bombing attack on a Manchester pop concert, including an eight-year-old girl and several parents who came to pick up their children.
Here is what we know so far about the victims of the terror attack, the deadliest in the UK since the 2005 London bombings: Eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos from Leyland, a town in Lancashire, northwest England, is so far the youngest named victim.
She attended the concert with her mother and older sister. Friends said they were both being treated for their injuries in hospital.
Chris Upton, head teacher at the Tarleton Community Primary School, described Saffie as “a beautiful little girl in every sense of the word”.
“The thought that anyone could go out to a concert and not come home is heartbreaking.”
Charlotte Campbell spent the hours after the attack desperately searching for her 15year-old daughter Olivia, but yesterday confirmed that she died.
“RIP my darling precious gorgeous girl Olivia Campbell taken far far too soon,” she wrote on Facebook, alongside a picture of Olivia.
She said they had spoken at about 8.30pm, two hours before the blast, adding: “She’d just seen the support act and said she was having an amazing time and thanking me for letting her go.”
The death of Georgina Callander, believed to be 18, was confirmed by her school, the Runshaw College Sixth Form Centre in Lancashire, northwest England, where she had been studying health and social care.
Alison Howe, 45, and Lisa Lees, 47, from Oldham, near Manchester, were killed while waiting in the foyer to pick up their daughters, the Daily Mirror reported. The girls, both aged 15, are believed to be safe.
The paper said Lees’s brother, Lee Hunter, also confirmed her death.
A Polish couple living in the UK were also caught in the explosion as they went to collect their daughters, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said. They were identified as Angelika and Marcin Klis by Polish media. Waszczykowski said their daughters are unhurt. John Atkinson, 26, from Bury in Lancashire, was named by friends as one of those killed.
John was “one in a million and loved by so many”, wrote Hayley Turk, who organised an online fund for his family.
Kelly Brewster, from Sheffield, east of Manchester, was confirmed as one of the victims by her partner Ian Winslow, who paid tribute on Facebook.
“Kelly really was the happiest she has ever been and we had so many things planned together. My daughter Phoebe will be absolutely devastated like we all are,” he said, according to media reports.
Some of those reports indicated Brewster died shielding her 11-year-old niece from the blast. –
‘‘ The thought that anyone could go to a concert and not come home is heartbreaking