When Shah Aghlani helped his mother, Sakina Afrasehabi, move into flat 151 of Grenfell Tower in 2016, he was full of concern. Afrasehabi was partially sighted, had severe arthritis and walked with the aid of a frame, yet she was housed on the 18th floor of the 23-storey building. “I felt scared because it was so high up in the air,” Aghlani recalls. “My fears turned out not to be baseless.”
Just a year after moving, on 14 June 2017, Grenfell Tower was engulfed in flames in one of the worst disasters to happen in modern history in the UK. On the night of the fire, Aghlani rushed to the tower after receiving a distressed phone call at 1.20am from his aunt, Fatima, who was staying with his mother.
“There was smoke at the top of the building. The fire was fierce,” Aghlani described in his witness statement to the inquiry into the disaster. “I was trying to keep them calm and the smoke suddenly got them. I heard every last breath my mother and aunt took.”
The Grenfell Tower disaster led to the deaths of 72 people, including Afrasehabi, 65, and Fatima, 59. About 41% of the tower’s disabled or vulnerable residents died in the fire. A lawyer representing bereaved family members told the inquiry the tragedy was a “landmark act of discrimination against disabled and vulnerable people”.
Shah, the eldest of Afrasehabi’s five children, spoke to the Guardian on the seventh anniversary of the disaster about the struggle bereaved families, survivors and residents continue to endure to secure accountability and justice for the victims. In particular, Aghlani described the decision by the government to not implement one of the main recommendations from the Grenfell Tower inquiry as “scandalous”.
In October 2019, the inquiry recommended the government introduce a legal obligation for building owners and managers to issue personalised emergency evacuation plans, or Peeps, to residents with disabilities or reduced mobility living in high-rise buildings. The government refused to implement the recommendation, claiming evacuation plans were not safe, practical or proportionate.
“If Peeps was in place on 14 June 2017, my mum would have been alive,” Aglani said. “Her nextdoor neighbour was a gentleman who actually knocked on her door … and he came down.
“It’s been seven years that has been wasted. The government has kicked the ball into the long grass and now they can just ignore … It is scandalous how the recommendations that were brought up are ignored.”
Afrasehabi’s daughter, Nazanin, told the inquiry her mother had been informed by the council in 2003 she should not be housed above the fourth floor of any building. Afrasehabi tried for more than a decade to find a suitable and accessible home but was “refused” and later moved into Grenfell Tower “out of desperation”, she explained.
Nazanin told the inquiry: “She couldn’t go down 18 floors of stairs on a good day, let alone in a fire. Her human right to escape was denied even before the fire happened.”
Seven years on from the tragedy, Aglani said the Grenfell Tower fire was a “manifestation of all the evil in the system, all the failures” and questioned whether his mother’s death had been in vain.
“The painful part is that when the government is indifferent – when they don’t want to implement the recommendations and they just ignore it – that is when we feel that their death, has it been in vain?
“Our demand was that these things should not happen, but I’m afraid the government just has not listened to us. Unless we get rights in law to protect us, and heavy fines, very heavy fines, to ensure these companies and authorities don’t turn a blind eye, I’m afraid we remain in continuous danger of living under these circumstances.”
The Home Office said it had implemented 11 of the 15 recommendations aimed at the government, with work continuing on the remaining four, including those related to Peeps. The department ran a public consultation seeking views on its plans in 2022 and was working on its formal response.
Elizabeth Campbell, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea council, said: “Our thoughts will always be with the people who lost their lives, their loved ones and their homes on 14 June 2017. This council could and should have done more to keep our residents safe before the fire, and to care for them in the aftermath.”
Seven years on, Shah remembers his mother fondly, describing her as “charming” and “welcoming”. “She wanted to just live freely and enjoy life with her grandchildren, her kids. She loved life, actually. She loved going out to picnics,” he said. “To her children, she was a caring mum, selfless … You have to judge people by their deeds and she helped a lot of people when she was alive.”
