Shahin Sadafi and Natasha Elcock tell of their struggles after the deadly fire and how they feel officials still are not listening

The story of how the survivors’ group Grenfell United emerged from the ashes of the fire is a remarkable one. The group’s leaders, still traumatised and homeless, have managed to create a powerful body, fighting from hotel bedrooms to bring to justice those they believe to be responsible for the deaths of 71 people.

Shahin Sadafi and Natasha Elcock sit on a committee of survivors who over the past seven months have worked relentlessly to try to establish some sort of order out of the chaos that followed the disaster – fighting initially for accommodation and medical help and latterly working to ensure the inquiry provides answers and triggers change.

Neither Elcock, who works for a high street retailer, nor Sadafi, a business consultant (just made redundant because of his prolonged absence), had any experience of campaigning. Both are despondent that it has fallen to the victims to take such a leading role in sweeping up the mess that followed the tragedy.

“I wanted to start fighting to make sure that the lives that we lost were not lost for nothing and that people would not be able to get away with committing such murders,” Sadafi said, in the first detailed interview given by Grenfell United’s leadership. “It is a shame that it was down to the people that were going through the trauma, people who had lost homes and family, to do this.”

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But in the immediate aftermath of the fire it became obvious to survivors that they were going to have to organise themselves quickly because of the stark absence of coordinated local and national support.

Sadafi described the conditions in the community centres where survivors gathered in the hours after the fire as similar to a war zone. “Central government and local government were nowhere to be seen. We were absolutely shocked at the lack of response and the lack of organisation. I was expecting the army to turn up – for support and relief. There was no one here,” he said.

The local community, by contrast, was “picking people up, giving them nappies, cups of hot tea. People were really left to fend for themselves. There wasn’t and still isn’t a national response to the disaster.”

He arrived at the Rugby Portobello Trust, a community centre a few streets from the tower, early on the morning after the disaster. Both he and his wife were away from their fifth-floor flat on the night of the fire, but his mother was there. He drove through the night to return to the burning building, waiting until she was rescued, and spent the early hours of the morning helping families reunite in the frenzied chaos at the bottom of the building.



“Some of us were even trying to get back into the fire to help people get out. We were looking at the windows and trying to point the firefighters to the people who were screaming for help.” Watching officials struggle to respond to the crisis in the hours after the fire was alarming, he said. “No one was prepared. That was the scary bit. When you see the people that you hoped would be in charge panicking, then your fear increases.”

Elcock was in her flat on the 11th floor until 4.30am when firefighters rescued her and took her to hospital. She owes her survival in part to her decision to flood the floors by turning on every tap in the flat where she had lived for 20 years. When she was discharged from hospital, after treatment for smoke inhalation, she found herself homeless and with no idea how to find somewhere to stay. She bumped into Sadafi, whom she had known since he was a child, in the Rugby Portobello as they both searched for information about what to do next.

“It was very evident that whatever plans are in place for dealing with a national tragedy were not initiated. There was zero coordination for many weeks. That’s why we formed. There was no list of who was in the tower, who was home that night, who was in hospital, who was alive. As a resident or a survivor, you didn’t know where to go or who to speak to,” she said.

“We had so many questions. We started putting lists on the walls of the Rugby Portobello ourselves so everyone who came in could put their names and numbers and that way we could know who was alive and who wasn’t.” When she and her daughter and partner were finally housed in a hotel, she was simultaneously booked into a second hotel. “The organisation was shockingly poor.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The remains of Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

In the weeks that followed, a small group of survivors worked together to organise the victims into a single group, working most days from 8am to 11pm. The Royal Garden hotel in Kensington agreed to host meetings and provided water and sandwiches. Sadafi met Theresa May twice, first at a small gathering of six people in a nearby council flat, and later at a large meeting with dozens of survivors and bereaved relatives. He told her upfront how poor the national response had been; she seemed shocked, he said.

The meetings organised by Grenfell United have been calm, and without any of the angry shouting that has characterised many of the public meetings. “People have been so dignified and strong,” Sadafi said. In the second meeting organised by Grenfell United, the prime minister stayed for two hours. “She listened to survivors and walked away with much more understanding of the issues that we are facing.”

Reflecting on the experience seven months on, Elcock said: “I’ve met more officials than you can name from the prime minister down. You have to learn how to have courageous conversations with people in senior positions.”

Both are depressed that they remain in hotels and are angry at the delays that have left more than 98 households (just under half of the 208 households from Grenfell Tower and the flats at the bottom) still in hotels. Sadafi has been in the same hotel since June. “It is a horrible feeling knowing you don’t have a home to go back to at the end of the day, having to live, eat and sleep in one hotel room.”

But they want to emphasise the positive work they have done. Elcock has worked with the NHS to get better targeted care for the hundreds of residents who are experiencing post-traumatic shock. “In that area we are having some success,” she said.

Sadafi regrets not having joined the Grenfell campaign group before the fire, as it tried to raise safety concerns with the council. “I was too busy with my life.” He suspects that a redesign which involved the closure of one access road to the tower made it harder for the emergency services to do their work.

He believes local officials remain reluctant to listen to the voices of the survivors. “We’ve faced institutional indifference from the council, being treated as second-class citizens. The council were not listening to the people they were supposed to be helping before the fire, during the emergency and even still to this day.”

He is determined now to help the survivors and the bereaved work together to make sure the inquiry provides answers and triggers changes – both in the way that social housing tenants are treated and in the way officials respond to catastrophes. “People must be listened to when they raise their concerns. We want proper fire safety regulations in place in high-rise buildings.”

Despite the prime minister’s refusal to allow a diverse panel of people who better reflect the backgrounds and experiences of those caught up in the fire, the group still hopes she may change her mind and is still gathering petition signatures in an attempt to persuade her. Sadafi wants individuals to face justice for their role in the disaster. “The inquiry is so important so these murderers are found,” he said.

• This article was amended on 25 January 2018 to remove a personal detail.

