Both came with the dream of a better life for their children – one forging a path for his fellow countrymen, and the other, his cousin, navigating a classic immigrant route behind the wheel of a taxi.
Both fathers had that dream shattered late Wednesday when a fast-moving fire ripped the hearts from their families – killing five sons of one and the wife and three kids of the other.
“I don’t know what I am going to do. I love her. I love my wife. That’s my love. They died, nobody is here,” cabby Mamadou Soumare wailed outside the Bronx home where his and his cousin Moussa Magassa’s families were wiped out.
The Bronx neighborhood of Highbridge, where a community of West African immigrants has sprung up, also shared in the loss. Neighbors remembered the sweetly smiling children holding hands as they walked to school at PS 73.
“These are our neighborhood babies. They always had a smile on their faces. They always greeted me with hugs and kisses. Could you imagine 10 hugs and kisses a day,” said Wanda Smith, a community group worker at the public school many of the families’ older children attended.
“They were always together,” said the school’s crossing guard, Wanda Ortiz. “It’s a shock. It’s hard to accept what’s going on.”
The two Malian immigrants and their families who shared the four-story building gutted by the blaze, lived difficult lives – Magassa always skirting the edge of poverty with the import/export business he ran with his brother, and Soumare toiling long hours plying the city’s streets.
Those lives were made only harder by their losses: Magassa’s five sons, Bandigou, 11, Mahamadou, 7, Aboukary, 6, Diaba, 3, and Bilaly, 1; and Soumare’s wife, Fatoumata, son Djibril, 3, and twin 6-month-old children, Sisi and her brother Harouma.
Magassa who was traveling in his home country for the past 1½ months on a business trip, was devastated when reached by phone with the news.
“Oh, my God! I have to get there. I have to come back,” he told his friend Bourema Niambele, who broke the horrible news to him.
“It was extremely hard to tell him, but he believes in God and that will make him strong,” Niambele said. Meanwhile, Magassa’s wife, Manthia, 35, who escaped the fire uninjured, was buoyed by her belief in Islam and the extremely close cultural bond she and her countrymen share.
“She’s a strong believer in God. This is the only thing that is helping her through this,” said a cousin, Sara Gamba.
“She told me she was the first one to come outside. She tried very hard to save her children but she couldn’t. When she tried to go back in, firefighters didn’t allow her.”
In all, Manthia lost five of her seven children. When reporters spoke to her, she could only utter a “thank you” when offered condolences.
In keeping with a cultural custom, Magassa has a second wife, Aissa, who lived in the same building as Mantia and her children. Aissa broke both her legs when she jumped from a second-story window, and her four kids narrowly escaped.
The two families’ long road to New York began 20 years ago, when Magassa, a member of the Sinonke tribe, arrived from the Malian capital of Bamako. He was one of the very first to come here from his arid, landlocked nation on the fringes of the Sahara Desert.
“He came here for the opportunity to raise his kids and look for a job. He was helping back home,” said Soumare’s cousin Musa Bukiray. “He sent money to everybody. He was sending money to help his sister’s kids, too.”
Soon, more members of his tribe followed, and in keeping with their tradition, Magassa opened his doors and helped them get established.
“We are a very strong culture,” Bukiray said. “We all live together. We share everything. I don’t have to know you and I will give you money if you are from my tribe. Any country you go to in the world, you would just send a letter and then just come and you would have six months to stay at someone’s house. It is OK, we are all family.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Mali said the Magassa household was well known in the country.
“I know the building and the family,” said Kalifa Gadiaga. “All Malians who go to New York pass through that building.”
In 1994, Magassa helped establish a mosque, the Masjid Deyaue of Islam, on Jesup Avenue. Not long after, he created a school to help the new arrivals learn to speak, read and write English. He later became treasurer of the High Council of Malians Overseas.
“He gave advice about how to survive in the United States and how to adjust to this society. He was very positive, ” said the mosque’s secretary, Ibrahim Ndure. “His vision was for his community to contribute positively and constructively in the United States. That was his American dream.”
Then, in 1996, Magassa’s cousin Soumare arrived from the tiny village of Tasauirga, and – like many before him – moved into the elder relative’s home.
“He was here to help his kids. He always talked about being an American,” Bukiray said.
He started driving a taxi – ultimately buying his own cab – and as he grew accustomed to life here, he began dispensing advice to the newer arrivals.
“He is the one people call when they want to come to America. He is the one who will help you get here, and when you get here, you can stay with him. He is very loving and he is a good adviser. He was the one who helped me,” Bukiray said. “Everybody loves Soumare.”
With their families in a new land, but their hearts still with their homeland, the decision about where to bury the dead will be hard.
An imam at another Bronx mosque the family frequented said Magassa will likely bury his children here and Soumare will bury his children and wife in Mali. He said mosques all over the city are going to collect donations for families.
Additional reporting by Douglas Montero, Dan Kadison, Jennifer Fermino and Post Wire Services