The three brothers and baby killed in Sunday’s Bronx blaze were identified Monday, as distraught kin noted the deaths are only the latest for the family in the past year.
Ahmed Saleh, 22, his 10-month-old daughter Barah Saleh and his younger brothers Mohamed Waleed Ahmed, 12, and Kalheed Waleed Ben Saleh, 10, all succumbed to their injuries after flames swept through a Quimby Avenue home in Unionport on Sunday morning, according to police and a cousin.
The little boys both died at the scene, while their older sibling and his daughter were taken to the hospital, where they did not survive, cops said.
“Terrible, terrible,” their crestfallen cousin, who did not want to be identified, repeated Monday morning, his face puffy and eyes red from wiping away tears.
At the time of the deadly blaze, the family was “having a sleepover,” the cousin said.
The brothers’ mother and her youngest boy, her only surviving child, managed to escape with the help of a neighbor.
Kalheed Waleed Ben Saleh, 10; Ahmed Saleh, 22, and Mohamed Waleed Ahmed, 12, were killed in The Bronx inferno, as was Ahmed’s baby daughter. The doomed brothers are shown standing with a male relative (far left). Facebook/Saleh WaleedShe isn’t doing well “because she just lost her father and her uncle last year,” another cousin, Issa Aldaylam, 41, said.
“So she is still living that tragedy for her father and her uncle, and now her kids, and she can do nothing with it,” he said. “That’s a big loss in the whole family – and it’s been a very tough year.”
The brothers also left behind a grieving father, Aldaylam, said.
“We just hope he [doesn’t] go after his kids with that big tragedy,” Aldaylam said. “It’s a big hit, big hit. … The [surviving] kid, Ahmed, his son, that’s it to carry his father’s name.
“For us, in our culture, you carry the family name, and we were so proud for his kids, his sons and now – big, big hit,” he continued. “What are we going to do?”
The surviving son is 4 or 5, according to Aldaylam.
Ten-month-old Barah Saleh was the youngest victim of the deadly fire at 2165 Quimby Ave. in The Bronx.
“Yes, life continues,” he said. “Always. And we always carry the name. Especially a good name.”
Neighbor Imlaque Chowhury, 30, recalled to The Post on Sunday how he helped the mom and her littlest boy escape the flames from the home that practically touches his next-door.
“[The] woman and little boy were banging on my window,” Chowhury recalled Sunday. “They were screaming, they were crying, and the black smoke was coming out behind them.
“I opened the window, and I grabbed them both and pull them inside. What else could I do? One of those kids that plays with my niece. I looked outside, and I saw the man running around. I thought that everyone had gotten out. I could have gone down, I could have helped. I could have done more. But I didn’t know. I thought everyone had gotten out.”
Neighbor Merlyn Persaue, 60, recalled the heart-wrenching scene Sunday.
“You could see their little hands banging on the windows,” Persaue said through tears of the doomed boys. “They were screaming, the children, ‘Hey Allah! Hey Allah!’ which means, ‘Help me, God! Help me, God.’
More than 100 firefighters battled the blaze that broke out Sunday morning at 2165 Quimby Ave. in The Bronx. Freedomnews.tv“I see the hands in the windows, and then the flames wash up on the windows, and then there was no more sound,” the neighbor said.
Doorbell footage from across the street captured the children’s screams and someone frantically banging on the front door, trying to get into the home.
The blaze was likely caused by faulty electrical wiring — with investigators finding a melted computer still plugged into the wall of the room where the fire started, law enforcement sources told The Post Monday.
