Update!!
9th child dies in Bronx fire
The Associated Press
After fire blazed through his Bronx home, killing his wife and three of his children, Mamadou Soumare had only his 7-year-old daughter left. On Saturday, word came that she too had lost her battle for life.
Asimi Soumare became the 10th victim of the devastating fire, said a family spokesman, Sheikh Moussa Drammeh.
The little girl died late Friday, as the bodies of other victims were being prepared for their funeral Monday: Asimi's twin baby sisters, 4-year-old brother and mother, as well as five others _ children of Manthia and Moussa Magassa who shared the three-story brick home with the Soumare family.
The blaze was New York City's deadliest since the 1990 Happy Land fire that killed 87 people in the Bronx.
On Saturday morning at Francisco's funeral home in East Harlem, the bodies of the dead were ritually washed and wrapped in white cotton in preparation for the Muslim funeral.
The Magassa children were to be buried in Millstone, N.J., and Soumare's family in their native Mali, in West Africa.
"I don't know what I'm going to do. I love my wife," Soumare said hours after the death of 42-year-old Fatoumata, 4-year-old Djibril and the 7-month-old twins, Sise and Harouna.
For the next two days, he visited Asimi, who died at Lincoln Medical Center of complications from smoke inhalation, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner.
Late Wednesday evening there, the fire decimated the house that was home to 22 West African immigrants _ five adults and 17 children.
Naralee Magassa, a 22-year-old member of the family, was asleep with her 5-year-old daughter when a space heater in the house's garden-level apartment sparked the fire. She tried to douse it with pots of water before alerting anyone.
As firefighters braved their way through the flames and thick smoke, some residents escaped, a few were rescued and two children were tossed out the window into the arms of neighbors below by another woman in the house. She then jumped, breaking her legs but surviving.
The other children inside were doomed, trapped on the upper floors and choked by the rising smoke; two babies died in their cribs. The medical examiner identified the five Magassa children as Bilaly, 1; his sister, Diaba, 3; brother Abudubucary, 5; Mahamadou, 8; and Bandiougou, 11.
The last time Samoure heard his wife's voice, she was screaming amid the fire after frantically calling him on his cell phone while he was driving his livery cab.
The woman who leaped out the window, Assia Magassa _ Moussa's 23-year-old second wife _ was at Lincoln Medical Center on Saturday with broken legs. Their 5-year-old daughter, Hatouma, was in stable condition there, and three of their other children also survived.
According to Mali's Muslim traditions, a man may have more than one wife.
Another of Moussa's children, a 6-year-old girl, remained in critical condition at Jacobi Medical Center. And a 15-year-old son, Madimakan, suffered only minor injuries after jumping out a window.
On Saturday, their charred, empty home on Woodycrest Avenue stood like a fresh wound amid the neat row houses in the working-class neighborhood of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean who live alongside American-born New Yorkers.
Despite the loss of their children, Soumare and Moussa Magassa were holding up well, said Drammeh, principal of the private, K-8 Islamic Leadership School attended by three of the Magassa boys, including 8-year-old Mahamadou, who died.
Drammeh said the two fathers are men "who can really handle this situation. They're strong in terms of whatever God decides for them."
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson planned to visit with the families on Sunday morning at the Islamic Cultural Center, the Bronx mosque where the funeral is to be held, said spokeswoman Christine Anderson.
The center is pooling donations for the needs of the survivors through the newly set up Magassa Soumare Family Fund, which topped $20,000 two days after the fire.
Drammeh and his wife, Shireena, also are setting up a scholarship fund in honor of the victims. Drammeh said he hopes those who receive the money, whether they are in Mali or the U.S., can carry on the legacy of the children who died.
A huge mound of stuffed animals grew each day at the center of a makeshift memorial to the victims on Woodycrest Avenue.
Scribbled on a cardboard tacked to a nearby iron fence was the message: "You are all God's little angels in heaven. We love you, rest in peace. Nyame nhyira hom. Amen."
The last few words mean "God bless" in an ancient West African language.
In the close-knit neighborhood, people were helping each other _ even on the street.
On the sidewalk next to the burned-out house, neighbor Elizabeth Matos has been serving hot tea and crackers every day to warm up anyone passing by in the frigid weather.
She explained why she did it: "Today for them, tomorrow for me."
