New Delhi, India – It was early on Sunday morning when Ruksana Khatoon, 47, received a telephone call from a relative telling her that her two sons were missing. They had left their village in the northern state of Bihar to work in New Delhi. But at about 4am local time on Sunday, a fire broke out in the multi-storey building that housed the factory where they worked.
At least 43 people died in the Indian capital’s deadliest fire in 20 years, although Ruksana did not know that then. All she knew was that her sons were unaccounted for.
She immediately left for the city with her husband, three of her daughters and another relative. They travelled the more-than 1,200km (745-mile) journey by train, arriving in New Delhi early on Monday morning.
She searched the city’s hospitals for her sons. Finally, at one, she learned what had happened to them.Her youngest son, 19-year-old Mohammad Gyas, had died in the fire.
Her oldest son, 24-year-old Mohammad Mubarak, had jumped from one of the building’s windows. He was being treated in the hospital’s burns ward.
Ruksana’s husband told Mubarak that his younger brother had died,
but she has not been allowed to see her son yet and does not know how serious his injuries are.”My whole world was shattered,” Ruksana explained as she sat with her daughters on the street outside the mortuary.
