Haji Dukuray is still in mourning four years after five of his family members died in the Twin Parks high-rise fire in the Bronx.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
A prayer vigil was held at the Ar-Rahmah mosque on Webster Avenue on Friday, marking the fourth anniversary of the blaze
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Authorities say\u00a0a faulty space heater caused the deadly fire
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Several elected officials spoke at Friday\u2019s vigil, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Attorney General Letitia James and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially when the names are read. When those names are read, it\u2019s like the wound comes up all over again. It\u2019s never easy hearing the names,\u201d said Dukuray, who attended a prayer vigil at the Ar-Rahmah mosque on Webster Avenue on Friday.<\/p>\n
Mourners marked the fourth anniversary of the blaze, which killed 17 people, including children. Dozens more were injured, and hundreds were displaced.<\/p>\n
Officials say a faulty space heater caused the fire.<\/p>\n
Dukuray\u2019s niece died in the blaze, along with her husband and three young children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my five-year-old niece, placing her in the grave. Her body being the last person to touch her. It just brings back memories. That was my first time ever touching a lifeless body,\u201d Dukuray said.<\/p>\n
On the day of the fire, Dukuray says his grandnephew Mustaffah was knocking on his neighbors\u2019 doors, telling them to run out of the burning building.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would not be so brave. That was Mustaffah. That was the type of person he was. He was just 12 years old but full of life,\u201d Dukuray said.<\/p>\n
Several elected officials spoke at Friday\u2019s vigil, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Attorney General Letitia James and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.<\/p>\n
Residents and elected officials alike have been calling for better prevention and systemic changes in the Bronx.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just overwhelmed here, so when we have multiple alarms, it takes longer for the other units to get into place and the fire grows. In December, there were 29 multiple-alarm fires in the city of New York. Eight of them were in the Bronx,\u201d Andrew Ansbro, the president of the Uniformed Fire Association, said.<\/p>\n
Dukuray says he\u2019s grateful for the support he\u2019s gotten from the community and hopes that no one else will ever suffer such a tragic loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the support we have here. The prayers and support from the community is what really keeps us going. And the effort and work that we\u2019ve seen from our leadership and elected officials. The fact that we know they\u2019ve been working hard for this same thing not to happen to any other family makes us feel good, and we\u2019re thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers have introduced fire safety regulations in recent years, including inspections of self-closing doors and the installation of heat sensors in federally subsidized buildings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haji Dukuray is still in mourning four years after five of his family members died in the Twin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[387,25,128,9,24,12,63,308,332,129,131,130,27],"class_list":["post-95557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-rebecca-greenberg","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}