LONDON — As 18 green balloons, one for each child who died in the Grenfell Tower fire, floated up into the sky on Tuesday alongside the abandoned building, 8-year-old Aicha, who survived the blaze, took the stage at the foot of her former home, which is now wrapped in a protective white covering.
“I will never forget my friends and my neighbors who didn’t survive,” she said, reading a poem she wrote. “We will fight for justice.”
Five years after the deadly fire at the West London apartment block killed 72 people, the families and friends of the victims, as well as survivors and supporters, gathered to honor those they lost and to demand justice for a tragedy that for many is still an open wound.
