Three murdered in f lat fire planned to start new life in US
A GRIEVING father said his wife and their two young daughters were about to join him for a new life in the US before they died in a fire in their Nottingham home.
Aboubacarr Drammeh was in the process of securing visas for his wife Fatoumatta Hydara, three-year-old Fatimah and her little sister Naeemah, aged one, so they could join him in Minnesota, where he works as a biomedical technologist.
But his dreams of a happy future were snatched away when the fire in their flat in the Clifton area of the city last Sunday claimed the lives of both of his children and later his wife, whom he’d been married to since 2014.
Mr Drammeh spoke of how they had so much to look forward to as a family. The 40-year-old said: ‘The plan was to move Fatoumatta and the kids to America so we could all live together.
‘We had an interview booked for November 29 and that would have been the final interview before we would hopefully have secured their visas. That’s not going to happen now and I can’t understand why.’
The fire that killed his family broke out at their flat in the early hours of November 20.
Fatimah and Naeemah died shortly after arriving at Queen’s Medical Centre, while Fatoumatta passed away two days later.
Mr Drammeh said: ‘It was 5am when I got the call. I was praying and afterwards I saw I had missed five calls from the children’s grandmother. I called back and she started crying. She said there had been a fire and the kids didn’t make it and that Fatoumatta was in the intensive care unit.
‘I just went straight to the airport and flew back to the UK. I’ve done that journey so many times but all the other times it’s been exciting because I was going to see my family.
‘This time around, I still can’t recall it. It’s just a blur.’
Jamie Barrow, 31, of Fairisle Close, Clifton, has been charged with their murders. He appeared in court last Friday and was remanded into custody.