Grenfell family lived in one-bedroom hotel room for 18 months
COUPLE WITH TWO CHILDREN HAD LOST FAMILY IN TRAGEDY
A FAMILY of four who escaped the Grenfell Tower fire had to live in a one-bedroom hotel room for 18 months after the tragedy, an inquiry into the tragedy was told.
Hanan Wahabi, her then-husband and two children were left to live in a tiny room after the fire, which took the lives of five of their family members.
Hanan, her husband and two children, Zakariya and Sara, lived at flat 66 on the ninth floor of Grenfell Tower. They managed to escape the fire on June 14, 2017, but Hanan’s brother and his family were killed in the blaze.
Giving evidence on Monday, Hanan said Kensington and Chelsea Council (RBKC) gave the family a one-bedroom Premier Inn room to live in for 18 months while they dealt with the emotional and physical trauma of the fire, including the search for their lost family members.
She also said the hotel did not offer the family halal food and they had to sit and eat meals with holidaymakers.
She added: “We were fasting and there were particular times of the day that we needed to break our fast. There was no accommodation for that at all.”
She told the inquiry: “You had to go and mix with people who were staying there having a holiday. That’s not the hotel’s fault, that’s RBKC’s fault. They should have thought about that and they didn’t.”
Hanan said she was initially offered housing outside the borough but refused because she was still waiting to find out what happened to her brother and his family. She said: “We were just like cattle. It was a tick-box exercise.”
Hanan said the experience of living in the tiny room “broke” her family and they still live with mental and physical trauma.
She worked as a schoolteacher at the time of the fire and her ex-husband was a school caretaker.
She said Sara, who was eight, was so traumatised she could not sleep in her own bed for years and still needs a night light. Her son Zak, then 16, could not sleep and would wander the streets at night.
Hanan and her family waited months before they were given formal confirmation that her brother and his family died in the fire.
Hanan’s brother Abdulaziz EIWahabi, his wife Faouzia and their children Yasin, 20, Nur Huda, 15, and Mehdi, eight, all lived at flat 182 on the 21st floor.
At the time of the fire, Abdulaziz worked as a hospital porter, Faouzia underook voluntary work and Yasin studied accountancy at Greenwich University.
In a statement, Hanan said Mehdi attended school full-time, Yasin had many friends, and Nur Huda had just finished her GCSEs, adding: “I picked up the results after she died. She had gotten high marks. I know her parents would have been very proud of her.”
The Grenfell Inquiry continues.