Newham fire: Three children killed in a tragic flat fire named as parents give heartbreaking tribute
Nakash Malik, 13, 11-year-old girl Aayat Malik and seven-year-old boy Muhammad Hanan Malik died in the fire at a property in Newham, east London, the Metropolitan Police said
Three children as young as seven who died in a horrific house fire have been named by police tonight.
The Metropolitan Police has tonight confirmed Nakash Malik, 13, 11-year-old girl Aayat Malik and seven-year-old boy Muhammad Hanan Malik died in the tragedy on Saturday July 13.
Their parents, Khurram Malik and Naumana Gul Khan, said of their children: "Your lives were a blessing, your memory a treasure. You are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure. May you rest in peace in God’s heaven."
Officers continue to investigate the cause of the fire alongside London Fire Brigade colleagues. At this stage, there is no evidence to indicate suspicious circumstances. Enquiries are ongoing.
The blaze ripped through the home in East Ham, east London, killing one child at the scene. A second died later the same night, and a third died in hospital. All three are understood to be siblings and a fourth is still receiving treatment, a friend of the family had told the Mirror.
Muhammed Hanan Malik was one of three siblings killed in the fire ( Image: Met Police)
Neighbour and friend Rida Nawaz, 28, broke a downstairs window of the house with her son’s hover board as the community desperately tried to rescue the family. Rida said: “The mother is still asleep, they’ve given her medicine to sleep. The father is in hospital and he is OK. He is with her. She does not know everything about the children yet. She’s my best friend and the third child who passed away yesterday visited to play with my kids.”
Rida added: "It’s like a bad dream, we think we’re about to wake up. We can still hear the kids’ voices, the noises. We wanted to save them and we tried but we could not. We broke the windows and there was so much smoke coming out.”
Tributes have paid paid to the children, including Aayat Malik ( Image: Met Police)
The mum came out of the bedroom window and the father from the attic, before they were rescued by firefighters, she said. Images show the shell of a conservatory in the back garden, where the fire is believed to have begun.
And terrifying footage since emerged, showing a man scramble onto the roof of the burning house. The video shows the moment a man, believed to be the father, wrestle his way out of the loft and onto the rooftop. Cheerag Jetha, 42, banged on neighbours’ doors - including the home in question - after he smelt and then saw smoke coming from the conservatory area at 8.25am.
He recorded all the times, saying he called the emergency services at 8.27am as the fire became bigger. Within around three minutes they heard a bang from inside the home.
Nakash Malik, 13, died in the blaze ( Image: Met Police)
The witness said: “We could see the mum in the bedroom window but she couldn’t turn back into the house as it was so full of smoke. People started throwing bricks at the windows to try and let air in. She was screaming for help and managed to get her head out of the window."
Firefighters arrived at 8.32am and helped get both parents out of two different windows. Cheerag said: "They got the children about five minutes later." The eight-year-old boy is understood to have died at the scene. The home is directly opposite Nelson Primary School, where neighbours said one of the children attended.
The other children went to a different school, friends said. Cheerag said he spoke to a teacher paying their respects at the scene. Cheerag added: “He was almost in tears and saying what a brilliant, wonderful mother she is." The mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, said: “Three children have now died from a family, and there really are no words to express how as a community we are reeling from the shock and horror of what a house fire can do.”
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