LONDON: Fighting back tears, relatives of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire paid emotional tribute in words, photos and recordings to their loved ones on Monday as an inquiry opened into Britain’s deadliest blaze.

Seventy-one people and an unborn child died in the fire of June 14, 2017, which was caused by a faulty fridge and devastated a 24-storey residential block in west London in the early hours of the morning.

“Now we are almost at the year anniversary of the fire and there are still so many unanswered questions,” said a statement by Mohamed Araf Neda, whose brother Mohamed ‘Saber’ Neda died in the inferno.

“I hope we can get more answers from this inquiry and, more importantly, justice. “All I know was my brother was a hero,” he said, pointing out that his brother had helped others get out of the tower.

“That is the memory I will hold in my heart as long as I live.” The public probe, which is expected to take evidence in two phases, opened with emotive statements about the disaster, with feelings still very raw about the way it was handled.

British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier this month bowed to concerted pressure from victims’ families by appointing new experts to assist in the second stage of the inquiry, which is being led by retired judge Martin Moore-Bick.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2018