Anger at the government response to the Grenfell Tower fire has burst into the open at the public inquiry, as relatives of two entire families who were killed delivered gruelling personal tributes and a nine-year-old girl became the youngest person to speak about her grief.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the inquiry chairman, presided over an emotional end to a week in which tributes have been paid to 47 of the 72 who died as a result of the fire.
One woman collapsed in the auditorium aisle following a harrowing commemoration for a family who lived on the 22nd floor. Hashim Kedir, 44, and Nura Jemal, 35, originally from Ethiopia, and their three children, Yahya, 13, Firdaws, 12, and Yaqub, six, died together.
In a blistering statement read out by her lawyer, Mark Scott, Assema Kedir Habib, Kedir’s sister, recounted the family’s desperate final 999 call. She said he was telling his six-year-old son he loved him.
“I then heard Yaqub replying, ‘I love you too, daddy’,” she said. “All the joy and energy from his voice was drawn out and they were replaced by heart-wrecking confusion, sadness and fear.”
She questioned whether the attempts to save people had stopped too soon and said “some responsible government department” must have been “just sitting and watching them turn to ashes”.
“Why didn’t the UK as a government try to do more that night?” she asked. “Why wasn’t more done to at least save their dead bodies? Was it because the lives of the victims of Grenfell Tower didn’t matter? Was it because our pain doesn’t matter? Was the cost of trying to do more higher than the lives of our loved ones? Was a price set for the precious, unfairly short-lived lives of Yaqub, Firdaws and Yahya?”
The inquiry had heard Yaqub’s “simple presence was a spark of happiness” and the family had been planning to visit Disneyland on Yahya’s 14th birthday in August 2017. Firdaws had an exceptional singing voice and was emerging as talented public speaker, and had been awarded a debating prize by Bill Gates three months before she died.
Jemal was a devout Muslim and Kedir had recently earned his black-cab licence, so he could spend more time with his family after years of long hours working as a builder, parking attendant and electrician.
“Dying is one thing. How to die is another thing and how you are treated after you die is a third thing,” Kedir Habib said.
“Our family members were let down on all three levels. They were made to live in a chimney. They were instructed repeatedly and for a long time to stay in their flat when everyone understood from the first 20 minutes that the fire was far from usual. They were cremated unwillingly.”
Claudia Davis, a former partner of Steve Power, a DJ and father of four who had lived happily in his Grenfell “penthouse” for 32 years and died with his three Staffordshire bull terriers, also voiced anger at the response.
“I want to scream at someone, I want to argue with someone, I want to deal with things like we deal with things on the street. So what I’m saying, Sir Martin – you do right by us all,” she told Moore-Bick.
He replied: “We’re certainly going to do our best.”
Earlier, another entire family who perished were remembered. Sara Chebiouni, nine, paid an emotional tribute to her eight-year-old cousin, Mehdi El Wahabi, with whom she regularly played on the landing of his 21st-floor flat before he died alongside his mother, father, brother and sister.
Surrounded by members of her family, she described Mehdi’s love for playing Minecraft and Lego, and said: “It is difficult knowing that Mehdi will never be able to play with us ever again.
“We used to have so much fun,” said the schoolgirl during a series of tributes to the family of five. “The 21st-floor was so much more fun and child-friendly than the ninth floor where I lived.”
She recalled the desk in his room covered with toys such as Furbys and fidget spinners, and his love for ice cream, curry and couscous.
There were tributes to Mehdi’s older brother Yasin, 20, who studied accountancy at Greenwich University, and his sister Nur Huda, 15, who had just finished her GCSEs.
Mariam El Wahabi, 13, another relative, said of Nur: “The indescribable pain I have felt since you left the world will never be taken away.” Their father, Abdulaziz El Wahabi, a hospital porter, was remembered as “the protector and the carer”, while their mother, Faouzia, was a talented cook and baker. They were born in Larache in Morocco before moving to Britain as children.
Sabah Abdullah, the husband of Khadija Khalloufi, 52, also from Morocco but living on Grenfell’s 17th-floor, remembered their 27 years of marriage.
“The smile doesn’t leave her face,” he said. “I lost part of me, that’s it. I have nothing else to say.”
The family of Jessica Urbano Ramirez, 12, who lived on the 20th floor, showed footage of her bouncing on a trampoline, and then of her funeral.
“There are no words to describe the feeling of emptiness inside us,” said her father, Ramiro Urbano. “It is only the people in the same circumstances as us that can understand this pain.”
He described constantly losing concentration during daily life as his thoughts turned back to the loss of Jessica. Her remains were found on the 23rd floor.
The commemoration hearings resume on Tuesday.