Flood of grief expected at mass funeral set for Sunday
A mass funeral service for 15 of the 17 victims of a horrific fire in a Bronx apartment building will be held on Sunday.
Janzana, a Muslim funeral prayer, will be said, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Islamic Cultural Center at 371 E. 166th Street in the Concourse neighborhood of the Bronx.
The mosque is expecting more than 2,000 mourners, including politicians. The NYPD plans to close down streets around the event, Diawara Boubou, secretary for the center, said.
The bodies of 11 of the victims will be taken to several Islamic cemeteries in New Jersey and the remains of four others will be flown to Gambia, their native country, on Tuesday, according to Boubou.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson said the city would redouble efforts to assist those affected by the fire. Sen. Chuck Schumer is helping expedite visas for relatives of fire victims, she said.
“The immediate priority is to make sure the residents get the services they need,” Gibson said. Officials said they were working with the medical examiner’s office to issue death certificates as quickly as possible.
“Every funeral and burial service will be covered,” Gibson said.
Residents who don’t want to return to the building would be helped to find other housing, she added.
“Residents are not being forced to return home. Many of them don’t want to return, they are traumatized and no longer want to live here,” she said.
A memorial service was held Wednesday for two other victims, 2-year-old Seydou Toure and his 5-year-old sister Haouwa Mohamadou, at the Timbuktu Islamic Center.
Mourners mobbed the sidewalk outside the mosque as the tiny caskets, draped with religious cloth, were lifted from the hearse and carried inside for the service.
The two children lived next door to the third-floor apartment where the fire started on Jan 8. Eight children and nine adults were killed in the blaze, which Fire Department officials believe was sparked by a space heater that had been kept on for several days.
It was the deadliest fire in the Bronx in decades, eclipsed only by the Happy Land Social Club fire that killed 87 in 1990.