NEW YORK – A 7-year-old girl died after a two-day battle for her life, becoming the 10th victim of a devastating Bronx fire that claimed eight other children and one adult, a family spokesman said Saturday.
Asimi Soumare became the fourth child in her family to die in the blaze that also killed her mother, said a family spokesman, Sheikh Moussa Drammeh. Mamadou Soumare, a cabbie who received a frantic call from his doomed wife Fatoumata on the night of the fire, has now lost all of his immediate family.
• Photo Essay: 3-Alarm Blaze Kills 9 in New York City
Word of the Friday night fatality at Lincoln Hospital came just two days before Monday's funeral of the other nine victims of the blaze -- three of Asimi's siblings, her mother and five cousins. The other five children belonged to the Magassa family, which shared the three-story brick home with the Soumares.
The girl's death was attributed to complications due to smoke inhalation, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner. The blaze was New York City's deadliest since 1990's Happy Land fire that killed 87 people in the Bronx.
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