New York City police on Saturday released the names of seven more victims killed in a fast-moving fire in the Bronx that killed 12 people, including a 7-month-old baby and a teenage girl.
Killed in Thursday’s fire were 7-month-old Amora Batiz; Gabriel Yaw Sarkookie, 48; Emmanuel Mensah, 28; Justice Opoku, 54; Solomon Donkor, 49; William Donkor; and 17-year-old Hannah Donkor, police said Saturday.
Shantay Young, 19; Karen Francis, 37; Kylie Francis, 2; Charmela Francis, 7; and Maria Batiz, 58, had previously been identified as among the dead.
The fire that broke out in a first-floor apartment just before 7 p.m. on Thursday was caused by a toddler playing with the burners on a stove, the city’s fire commissioner said. Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was the worst fire tragedy in the city in a quarter-century.
The fleeing family left the door open and the flames moved through the 5-story building “like a chimney” and trapped those above, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Friday.
Maria Batiz' brother was among those grieving the loss. He said her baby granddaughter also died, but the child's mother survived. "I didn't believe it," Fernando Batiz said told NBC New York. "I had to come down here and see for myself."
"The smoke, I guess, overcame her," he said, according to the Associated Press. "Everything happened so quick."
Mensah was a soldier who was last seen heading back into the fire to try and help others, NBC New York reported. After he couldn't be found, family members told the station they were hoping he was among those injured in the fire.
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December 30, 2017
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