The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Two children injured in a house fire that killed five of their siblings and five other people are to return to school Monday and their father says he plans to rebuild their house.
“Everything is OK,” said their father, Moussa Magassa. “We moved to a new home, we’re doing fine. We’ve got everything we needed.”
Magassa, his surviving children and their mothers have moved into two apartments near their home in the Bronx that was gutted on March 7, the New York Post reported Sunday.
The Magassas plan to rebuild the house, which they shared with the family of fellow Malian immigrant Mamadou Soumare. The fire killed Soumare’s wife and four children.
Several surviving members of the Magassa family were hospitalized after the blaze, including 5-year-old Hatouma and 6-year-old Kadiatou. The girls have been released, and their father said they were eager to return to their elementary school.
“Every day they came to me and said ‘Dad, let’s go (to school),’” Magassa said.
The girls’ school is still mourning three of his sons — Bandiougou, 11, Abdubucary, 5, and Mahamadou, 8 — who were remembered Friday at a memorial attended by teachers and classmates.