Several kids as young as 4 and 5 years old were among the fatal victims of Sunday’s Bronx blaze, while other children injured in the horror remained hospitalized, including two babies, according to authorities.
Among the dead were a 4-year-old, two 5-year-old girls, a 6-year-old boy, a pair of 11-year-old girls and 12-year-old boy, police said.
The two 11-year-olds and one of the 5-year-olds shared the same last name, police sources told The Post.
The children still hospitalized include 7-month-old and 11-month-old girls, as well as at least eight other kids.
Renee Howard — a longtime resident of the ravaged building who escape her 19th floor apartment with her son and godson — said she knew two of the tragic deceased children.
One of the 11-year-olds “had such beautiful angelic eyes,” Howard said.
“These are children. I saw the firefighters taking the children out … the children of my community.
“Their lives have been taken and snatched away in a second. So we’re praying.”
Howard, a former teacher, said she doesn’t know if she will ever return to the high-rise herself.
“I don’t wanna go back there,’’ she said.
Fanta Barrow, 45, said she found out Sunday that her 19-year-old cousin died in the fire.
He dreamed of being a lawyer, she told The Post on Monday outside the ill-fated building.
“It’s not easy,” Barrow said, unable to hold her composure and fighting back tears.
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“He was a tall guy, very beautiful guy,” she said, offering only the phonetic spelling of the young man’s name. “He was lovely. He liked everybody. He was in school right now. I was talking to him, he said, ‘Auntie, I want to be a lawyer.’ I said, ‘Oh, you have to make money. … I just pray for you.’”
The city has yet to release the names of the dead — and scores of relatives of missing potential victims are still desperately trying to learn their fate.
Yusupha Jawara has been frantically searching for his brother and sister-in-law.
“I’ve been looking for my brother and his wife since yesterday. Nobody’s telling me anything,” he lamented to The Post on Monday. “They keep telling me to call 311, I call 311, they don’t have anything to tell me.
“My family needs closure, at least. I was in the emergency room yesterday since 12, nobody’s giving me any information. Why are they keeping the information from us?”
The family of wheelchair-bound Dorel Anderson is in the same boat.
Anderson, 38, was visiting her boyfriend, Ramel Thompson, 44, in apartment 13R in the building at the time of the fire, according to her family.
The missing woman has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair since she can’t walk, kin said. Thompson’s parents lived on the 17th floor and were able to make it out safely. Anderson’s boyfriend also is still missing.
“We were given no information. We can’t find her,” said Anderson’s mom, Karen Benjamin.
One of Anderson’s sisters, April Stevens, said neither the NYPD nor the Red Cross have information on the missing woman, who lives in Brooklyn with her 85-year-old grandmother, who has cancer.
The family said they went to Jacobi Hospital on Sunday night looking for her, to no avail.
Julie Bolcer, a rep for the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office, told The Post on Monday that the ME currently has 17 decedents from the fire in Bronx and Manhattan morgues.
The victims are being identified virtually to make the process less burdensome for the families during such difficult times, ME officials said.
“We are working with families to make identifications,” Bolcer said.
The city said it is working with the Red Cross and has set up a victim identification system where people can call 311 to report missing loved ones and help identify bodies.
A GoFundMe organized by the Gambian Youths Organization, which is headquartered just a few blocks away from the apartment building, has raised over $1,000,000 for the victims of the tragedy.
Original story found here.
