Liberian student, keen to meet aunt, now waits for her remains

New Delhi: Maria, a Liberian student with a red suitcase, made her way to the AIIMS Trauma Centre on Thursday morning, unable to process that she had just lost her aunt in the bed and breakfast fire in Delhi.Janjay N Roland, Maria’s 61-year-old aunt, came to India last week with her husband for his treatment at Max Hospital, where he is admitted. The aunt’s arrival had meant that after two years, Maria would meet someone from back home. That meeting never happened. On Wednesday, in the bed and breakfast fire in Hauz Rani that claimed 21 lives, Janjay died. Maria got a call from the police in Dehradun, where she studies.Janjay was among 12 foreign nationals who died in the blaze. Maria received an image that had confirmed her aunt’s death. At AIIMS, the young woman made frantic phone calls to relatives, trying to navigate through the paperwork and the grief at once.Maria left Liberia two years ago for India. Since then, she had not seen much of her extended family. The couple’s visit to Delhi was supposed to change that.“I was going to come to Delhi to see my aunt this week,” she said, her voice breaking as she waited. She was coordinating with relatives across continents, informing her loved ones about the tragedy, while also trying to figure out the next steps. Officials from the Liberian embassy were present at the mortuary to assist Maria.Also present in the mortuary was Habib Abid, an Iraqi who lost his 21-year-old brother-in-law, Ali Amer Mosa. The duo had come to India for the treatment of Abid’s son. What was meant to be a trip to nurse his son back to health ended up weighing heavier with the loss. Abid told reporters that he managed to escape the fire through a window, but his brother-in-law was unable to.