Mother pleaded with rescuers to save children from flames

A mother screamed at neighbours to save the lives of her two children as flames engulfed their home in a blaze which police think was started deliberately.

Badly burned Iram Shah, 30, pleaded for rescuers to pluck her 10-year-old daughter, Aleena, and eight-year-old son, Aman, from their home in Bradford in the early hours of yesterday morning .

One of them, next door neighbour, Zainab Maqsood, 17, said she ran outside to see nearby residents rolling the partially clothed woman on the grass.

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She said she covered the woman up with her headscarf and a towel as her clothes had been burnt off.

The mother who is thought to have jumped from an upstairs window kept screaming for her children and trying to get up off the grass despite her horrific injuries and the efforts of neighbours to calm her down.

Miss Maqsood said: "The first I knew about what was happening was when I heard my mum Mizaj screaming and telling me to wake up because there was a fire next door.

"Iram was screaming, 'Just save my kids, just save my kids'. She just kept screaming and screaming it over and over again."

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Miss Maqsood said neighbour Faisal Mohammed, 19, and the children's 21-year-old uncle known as Mohsin managed to break a window but the flames were too ferocious for anyone to go inside.

"Everyone from every house was out carrying buckets and trying to help," she said. "Iram's face was dreadful, I shall never forget it. I saw Aman and he was completely black and floppy, he had no life in him. I was crying, I couldn't hold back my tears.

"I was ringing the ambulance station when I saw the fireman bring his body down the ladder, after that I couldn't talk to her I was so upset.

''I could hear so many people wailing and four police officers had to stop one of Iram's family from breaking into the house to try and rescue the children.''

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One neighbour said Aman was carried out of the house "like a rag doll" by fire crews and taken into an ambulance where they tried to resuscitate him.

Mrs Shah was taken to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield with life-threatening injuries, police said.

A neighbour of the family in Hendford Drive, Shajah Rehman, said he was woken by people "screaming and shouting" as the house was engulfed by flames.

He said: "I went outside and saw the house on fire. The mother was outside and her face was covered in black smoke. She was in agony and screaming for the kids."

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He said the whole house was ablaze and another neighbour, a teenager, tried to smash a window in an effort to reach the children but the double-glazed panels were too strong and he cut his hand.

Mr Rehman did not see the children brought out of the house when emergency services were finally able to reach them.

He added: "I don't have any clue as to how the fire started. It's been a total tragedy."

Mr Mohammed described how he tried to smash his way into the house after finding the woman in flames outside.

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He said: "I heard some woman screaming. I came outside the house to see a woman on fire. She had flames all over herself.

"I just rolled her on the ground but she was saying, 'My kids are inside, my kids are inside.' I went to smash the windows but I couldn't get in. There were too many flames."

Miss Maqsood added: ''It all happened so quickly – by the time my mum told me that she had seen the fire and got downstairs the size of it had doubled.

"It is just so, so tragic. Really, really shocking.The children were in my garden yesterday playing with my sister. Then the boy was helping fix my brother's bike.

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"They were a lovely family, very respectful and always used to offer to help carry my mum's shopping when they saw her.''

She said the children's mother was a "brilliant person".

"She's always chatting and joking and things," Miss Maqsood said. "It's so terrible what's happened to her."

The dead children's father Zaheer Shah and their grandparents who live nearby were too upset to speak to the media yesterday.

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