“I could clearly recall that when we knocked the doors of our neighbours residing on the second and third floor, they opened the door briefly and closed it on our face instead of helping us at least in the name of humanity.”
Sumaiya Akhter, who suffered 95% burns in Friday’s gas explosion and is now fighting for her life, said this while explaining the incident to her relatives yesterday evening in the capital’s City Hospital. She was shifted to the hospital from Dhaka Medical College Hospital yesterday.
Dhaka Tribune received an audio of her conversation with her relatives.
In the conversation, Sumaiya was heard saying: “My husband, with our 14-month-old boy Zayan, and I came to the ground floor after knocking on several doors. I begged for help and asked people to give me a piece of cloth as mine were burned in fire. But not a single person came forward to help us.”
She cried saying that if any of the neighbours had helped them, their children might have not died. She said even their security guard did not pay heed to her pleas to rescue the children from the fire.
A lot of people were there during the incident, but no one came forward to save them, she said. “I don’t know what sort of humanity they have inside them.”
Sumaiya’s brother-in-law Riaz Mollah told the Dhaka Tribune: “As the doctors are saying she will not live for long, we shifted her to this hospital. We wanted her to spend her last few days with her only living child in front of her.”
Nine-year-old Zarif, who received 6% burns in the explosion caused by a gas leak in the kitchen, is the only member of the family alive other than his mother Sumaiya.