Munira Mahmoud, 38
Stay home parent. He lived on the fifth floor
Grenfell was a beautiful place to live. It was like a big house. My father-in-law had dementia; he would leave the building and my neighbors would return him. They called me and said, “Don’t worry, we found him! We gave him a cup of tea. ” I would knock on their doors and ask for onions. Who does this in London? People would tell you to go to Tesco.
My best friend Rania Ibrahim moved in a year and a half before the fire. She was from Egypt and I am Ugandan. She was a beautiful human being. I remember when she first came to my house, she brought me soup and chicken. She went on vacation to Egypt and came back with a suitcase full of presents for me. I had never met anyone so generous. Every Friday, when it rained or shone, she baked a basbuza cake for the mosque.
On the night of the fire, after I left, I was the last person to talk to her on the phone. Emergency services told her to stay because help was coming. Before she died, she posted a video on Facebook, saying a prayer and accepting her death. In terms of faith, Rania was hardcore. I was forced to listen to the video three months later. Once and never again.
I thought we would be at the hotel in a few weeks. This turned into 19 months
The neighbors were so amazing. I left the apartment with nothing and until we arrived at the hotel in the evening, after we had baby food, diapers, clothes and blankets. (I have three children, 10, six and one.)
I thought we would be at the hotel in a few weeks. This turned into 19 months. The children and I were on the ground floor, and my husband and father-in-law were on the first floor. We could not do laundry and there were no cooking facilities. But my parents raised me to be grateful for what I have. I was grateful to have survived. I was grateful to have a roof over my head. We moved into a house in Kensington in February 2019. We are trying to turn it into a home. For a while, my daughter kept asking me to come back to the hotel.
After giving birth to my third child in February 2021, I collapsed. I was in the hospital for five days. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. One asked, “Are you experiencing any stress?” I said, “What if I told you I survived Grenfell?” I told everyone I was fine, but my body couldn’t take it anymore, and it started to shut down.
In 2018, I contributed to Together, a cookbook written by those affected by the fire. Cooking was a big escape for me. Rania and I wanted to take over the kitchen in the mosque. Cooking and feeding people was our dream. Now I have this double responsibility. To do it not only for myself, but also for her.
“When I went out and saw the building burning, I cried out from inside my soul,” Ed Dafarn said. Composite: Karen Robinson / Guardian Design
Ed Dafarn, 59
Social Worker. Lives on the 16th floor
I moved to Grenfell in 2001. At first I was busy studying for my degree in social work, then I worked, but in 2009 my mother fell ill and I became her caregiver. I had more time for my hands and tried to clean my windows because they were dirty. It took me about a year to write letters before I got anywhere. This first alerted me to the fact that there may be a problem with my landlord.
I have always described TMO [tenant management organisation] like a mini mafia. They were a very dysfunctional organization. They were designed to provide services to tenants, but that was not what they were interested in. It was very abusive.
We started Grenfell Action Group in 2010 and started blogging in 2012. I’ve always thought that after 50 years, when there are no working class people living in London, people may want to understand why this happened – and our A blog can be a way for them to look at and see how communities are treated.
Around 1 am on the night of the fire, I heard my neighbor’s smoke alarm. When I opened my front door, the hallway was full of black smoke. I got this feeling of fear in my stomach. My phone rang and a neighbor called for me to leave the building. There was something so powerful about the way he spoke to me. I wet a towel, grabbed my phone, keys, and bank cards, and went down the hall.
There is a perverted celebrity who comes from being in the tower. I now live in Notting Hill, where no one knows who I am
I could not see beyond my nose. The emergency door was only a few meters away, but I couldn’t find it. I panicked and began to inhale smoke. I thought, damn it, that’s it. At that moment, a firefighter came in the door and pulled me up the emergency stairs. He was there because my neighbor’s son asked him to come and save his father. Instead, the fireman caught me. His father never left the building.
I ran for my life down the stairs. I ran away from people with disabilities. I am very ashamed of myself for doing so. But I didn’t think right. When I went out and saw the building burning, I cried out from inside my soul.
I spent about a year in hotels, then another year in serviced apartments. Living in a hotel is really depressing. I had to eat every meal outside. Sometimes you just want to boil an egg. Fortunately, there were other Grenfell families in the same hotel, so we would have breakfast together.
Then I took an apartment, but I didn’t succeed. It was too close to the tower. That was my mistake. There is a perverted celebrity who comes from being in the tower. People in the community, all well-meaning, want to talk to you. I now live in Notting Hill, where no one knows who I am.
For me, justice would be criminally responsible people for what happened. People need to go to jail. The fun of money laundering that we witnessed during the investigation must stop. And people need to sleep safely at night in their homes. No more building cladding. People in social housing should be treated with respect. We are currently millions of miles away.
I always say that Grenfell was a tragedy in three acts: the way we were treated before the fire; what happened on the night of the fire; and abandonment thereafter.
Official answer
In a statement, the former tenant management organization of Kensington & Chelsea (KCTMO) said: “The investigation into the investigation is ongoing and the investigation has not yet reached any conclusions on these issues. It would therefore be inappropriate for KCTMO to respond to any further allegations made and this could potentially undermine the investigative investigations.
“The Grenfell Tower fire was a terrible human tragedy and all those involved in KCTMO continue to express their deepest condolences and condolences to the bereaved, the survivors and their families.
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