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Fire and rescue teams and military active at the Nirufehi house where the deadly fire took place. Photo/Dhauru

Nirufehi Fire: Couple dead only days after holiday return

Friends say that when the deceased expatriate women met with her friends, she would always show pictures of her grandchildren.

11 November 2022

By Aminath Shifleen

Lakshmi spoke to her best friend in Maldives a few weeks ago. That day, she told her friend that she was very busy, but that they should meet soon.

Before they could meet, Lakshmi, who looks after a senior citizen in a house in Male, received news early Thursday morning that the house where her best friend with her husband lived was on fire. 

"I didn't know what happened to my best friend at the time, but I knew it's where they lived," says Lakshmi, who knows how to speak the local language fluently as she has been working in the country for many years.

Lakshmi could not go near the burning house at the time, but she kept trying to check if her friend and her husband had left the house safely by phone. At that time, when firefighters had carried the dead bodies of the fire victims covered with a white cloth, none of the people present at the scene knew about her friend’s whereabouts.

"Then today, when I went near the mortuary, someone said they had found the body of my friend's husband, but my friend’s body was unidentifiable," Lakshmi said.

Lakshmi and her deceased friend had been friends for years. They would meet every Friday when they were free. They sat on the benches of parks and would talk for hours.

Lakshmi recounted how her friend and her husband got married when they were very young. The only daughter they had now has children of her own. 

Friends say that when the deceased expatriate women met with her friends, she would always show pictures of her grandchildren.

According to Lakshmi, her friend, who used to go door-to-door for work, had returned home from a vacation late last month.

"She was a little sick and took one month off. And came back recently," says Lakshmi.

"I'm struck with grief, I will never see her again."

So far, it is known that this is the only couple that was killed in the fire. However, a total of 10 people, including Lakshmi's friend and some other women, were killed in the incident. Nine of them are Indians.

The bodies of the deceased are kept in the mortuary. Some people were too charred to identify who they were, not even for their friends and family.

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