A mother held her three-year-old daughter tightly “to squeeze the nightmare away” as flames engulfed them in the Grenfell Tower fire, the public inquiry into the tragedy has heard.
The remains of Amal Ahmedin, 35, and her young daughter, Amaya Tuccu Ahmedin, were found next to each other in the 23rd-floor lobby.
The body of Ms Ahmedin’s husband, Mohamednur Tuccu, 44, was recovered from close to the nearby leisure centre after the blaze.
Winta Afewerki said her aunt Ms Ahmedin, who she called her sister, was the “the most caring person” who was not judgmental of anyone she met and would “give the shirt off her back to help you”.
The pair grew up sharing a room and when she had bad dreams, Ms Ahmedin would “hold me so tight and squeeze out the nightmares”, Ms Afewerki said.
She recalled that when Ms Ahmedin had her daughter Amaya, she would do the same for her. “That’s how they were when they were burned alive – holding each other so tight and trying to squeeze the nightmare away,” she told the inquiry.
“Motherhood brought out a layer of her personality we were all in awe of,” Ms Afewerki said. “Her daughter was the love of her life.”
She remembered the three-year old as “smart” and “a bit cheeky”. “Amaya’s laugh was infectious – her whole body would shake and she would jump up and down,” she said.
“I will never accept that they are gone. I will continue planning Amaya’s life.”
Another of Ms Ahmedin’s nieces who referred to her as a sister, Feruza Afewerki, told the inquiry: “Those we grew up with, who shared our fondest memories with, celebrated and mourned, have had their lives stolen from them while the whole of London watched.
“It has been completely surreal and the most painful and devastating time of our lives.”
She said toddler Amaya “loved music and would stop and dance in front of buskers in the street”.
“I miss our guitar jams and how she would love to sing [the soundtrack to the Disney film] Frozen at the top of her lungs,” she said.
Ms Ahmedin’s cousin, artist and designer Amna Mahmun Idris, 27, who was found on the same floor, was remembered by her husband as “the light of her family”.
“When I talk about Amna I feel the world stops. She was everything to me. I will never find anyone like Amna,” he said.
Thursday is the fourth day of hearings commemorating the 72 victims of the blaze held in the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in South Kensington in front of the inquiry’s chairman, Sir Martin Moore-Bick.
The tributes are now set to continue until Wednesday, before the inquiry moves to offices in Holborn, central London, where several procedural hearings have already taken place.
