“How does a mother comprehend that? How do you go from giving birth to being told that your baby’s remains are ashes?”

There are some tragedies the human heart simply cannot comprehend. I keep thinking about the mother crying hysterically, trying to understand how this could possibly be real. Just a day ago, a life was born. A tiny baby came into this world.

A mother had given birth. A family had welcomed a new life. There should have been happiness, photographs, whispered prayers and dreams about everything that little child would become. And then a fire took it all away. In its place, there are ashes — ashes that will have to undergo DNA analysis before they can be returned to the families. How does a mother comprehend that? How do you go from giving birth to being told that your baby’s remains are ashes?

How do you hold yourself together when the child you carried for nine months, the child whose face you were waiting to see, whose name you had chosen, whose tiny clothes were waiting at home — is suddenly gone? I cannot stop thinking about those newborns when the fire broke out. They were so small. They could not run. They could not escape. They could not call out for their mothers. They were completely dependent on someone else to protect them. And somewhere outside that ward were mothers and fathers who believed their babies were safe. The thought is unbearable.

But tell me something. How does a family find closure when all they have left of the person they loved is ashes? How does a mother say goodbye to a child when she cannot hold them one last time? How does a father bury a son when the fire has taken away almost everything that made that son recognisable? There is no real answer. There is only grief.

And then there is the rest of us.

For a few days, we watch. We cry. We share the photographs. We express shock. Then another tragedy happens. Another headline takes over. The cameras move on. The world moves on. But the mother does not. The father does not. The family does not. Their homes remain painfully quiet. Their children’s clothes remain untouched. Their photographs remain on the walls.

“2026 is becoming unbearably heavy with coffins, ashes and families searching for the remains of the people they love. Please, let us not become numb to it.” Beena Khan, Journalist & Communication Trainer

And the question remains: how do you find closure when the person you loved has been reduced to ashes? 2026 is becoming unbearably heavy with coffins, ashes and families searching for the remains of the people they love. Please, let us not become numb to it. Before committees. Before inquiries. Before bureaucracy. Let there be humanity. Let there be empathy.

Let us care enough about another person’s child, another person’s mother, another person’s father, to understand that these are not statistics. These are lives. Entire worlds. And when the media moves on, let us not.

Because behind every headline is a family that will wake up tomorrow and realise that their loved one is still gone. Small coffins are the hardest to carry. But sometimes there isn’t even a coffin. Sometimes there are only ashes. And a family trying to find a way to say goodbye.

May Allah have mercy on every innocent soul lost in these fires and give their families the strength to carry a grief that words cannot contain. Some tragedies should not be forgotten simply because the cameras have left.