Updated at 3.30pm
ANOTHER VICTIM OF the Grenfell Tower fire has been named as Zainab Deen, making her the 33rd person to be formally identified, and leaving a further 40 others’ identities unknown.
Her identification comes exactly four weeks since a giant fire swept through the 24-story residential building in south-west London.
The death toll following the fire officially stands at 80, but is expected to rise as authorities continue to recover bodies and those who are missing are confirmed to have died.
Zainab’s father Zainu and Maria Deen said: “It is with great sadness that we can confirm we have been notified by the police that our daughter Zainab Deen died in the tragic Grenfell Tower fire.
Zainab has been missing with her son, our grandchild, Jeremiah, who we still await news on. We respectfully ask to be allowed to grieve privately at this time.
“Funeral arrangements will now be made and all further updates will come from Zainab’s immediate family only. Thank you.”
New leader
The new leader of Kensington council has admitted that she had never been in one of the high-rise council tower blocks in her district before the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Elizabeth Campbell took on the role after her predecessor stepped down amid criticism of the local authority’s response to the fire.
On this morning on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, Campbell was asked whether she was ever in Grenfell Tower before the disaster, to which she said she hadn’t.
Asked whether she’d been in any council tower blocks before the disaster, she said she’d been in other council homes.
“I haven’t been into the high-rise council blocks before but I am certainly doing that now,” Campbell said.
As I said, most of my experience over the last 11 years in the council has been with families and children services, with people on the ground. The families who I seen may not have been living in high-rise but they have all been in north Kensington.
In a statement today, commander Stuart Cundy of London’s Metropolitan Police said the community is still in mourning after the tragedy.
“Four weeks ago a terrible tragedy unfolded within Grenfell Tower. The human cost of that tragedy is something we are all still trying to fully comprehend. For many people the events of that night will remain with them forever,” he said.
Each and every one of us involved from the Met is determined to do all we can to return those who died to their families as soon as we can. Today, we remember all those who have been so deeply affected.
The Irish response to the Grenfell tragedy has seen Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy introduce a number of initiatives to prevent a similar devastating fire occurring here.
Among them is a requirement by local authorities to review fire safety in all multi-storey social housing units. Reports from those reviews must be returned to the department by 19 July.
With reporting from Gráinne Ní Aodha
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