Community gathers to remember fire victim

SEATTLE -- So many lives were lost in last weekend's deadly Fremont apartment fire, Seattle opened KeyArena for a public memorial Friday.
The fire started in a mattress, killing four children and their aunt.

Members of the Ethiopian community say they know sorrow, and that's why many of them moved here, but the sorrow they're experiencing after this tragedy is more than some of them can handle.

Ethiopian, Islamic, and Seattle school communities grieved together over the fire that killed five of their community members.

It was an unbearable blow for the mother of three of those children. Helen Gebregiorgis said her 13-year-old son Joseph dreamed of playing for the Celtics.

Joseph's 6-year-old sister Nisreen Shamam was a girly girl, and their 5-year-old brother Yaseen was a hugger.


"You were more than a cousin to me, you were the brother I never had," said Yaseen's cousin.

Flames and smoke also trapped their 9-year-old cousin Nyella Smith.

"She was daddy's little girl and momma's little princess," another speaker said.

And locked in the bathroom with her nieces and nephews, were 22-year-old Eyrusalem Gebregiorgis.

"On a Saturday in mid-June our Angel gathered up her nieces and nephews like she always does and found her peace as she took the steps up to heaven," one said.

The procession left here and headed to a cemetery on Aurora Avenue where the five victims will be buried next to their grandfather. He died before the children were born, and their relatives believe now they'll finally meet.
Komo TV