Bronx, N.Y., fire kills 10 Malian immigrants

Nine children and one adult died from a fire in a wooden house in the Bronx late March 7.

While driving in Harlem, taxi driver Mamadou Soumare got a frantic call from his wife Mariam about the fire. He arrived home in time to see his wife and four children perish.

Neighbors who saw the flames roaring through the house shouted to a woman at the window: “Throw your children out! Throw them!” Neighbors Edward Soto and David Todd managed to catch one child in the dark. They couldn’t catch the other child, but she did survive. The woman then jumped and survived with a broken leg.

Moussa Magassa, who owns the building, is a vice-president of the Association of Malians Abroad. He is reported to be extremely well known in his community as a generous, caring man. He lost his wife and five of their children in the fire.

All 22 people living in the building were members of the Malian community in New York. Mali is an extremely poor, desert country in West Africa.

Billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg left the morning of March 8 for a trip to Miami.

When the minister of Malians abroad announced that the Malian government was going to send a delegation to New York to console the survivors and provide assistance, Bloomberg cut his trip short.

The fire was front-page news in New York for several days.

New York City Fire Department officials quickly and publicly blamed the tragedy on mistakes by the victims: no working smoke alarms, open doors and a rickety space heater.

The media overall ignored a report in the March 9 Daily News that the Building Department had denied the owner a permit to spend $60,000 to put in sprinklers and a metal staircase that would have given people much more time to escape and perhaps even controlled the fire.

The media are also ignoring the fact that there are thousands of buildings in New York, built in the early 20th century, that have the same design flaws that led to these 10 deaths—no fire escape and a wooden staircase that lets a fire sweep through the building. These firetrap buildings are officially legal.

The climate of fear generated by repression against immigrants, particularly the undocumented, makes residents reluctant to report problems. A call for help can bring the police, and possibly immigration agents, posing a risk to families and livelihoods.

West Africans in New York also remember Amadou Diallo, a Guinean street peddler, gunned down by the cops, and Ousmane Zongo, a drum maker, killed in his storage locker when he ran away from an undercover cop who was brandishing a gun.

The media have reflected the terrible grief of the Malian families and community. But holding the survivors responsible for this tragedy protects the city and landlords from being held accountable for their role in this tragedy.