A family are lucky to be alive after a blaze quickly engulfed their Huddersfield flat, destroying everything they own.

Speaking exclusively to Huddersfield Hub, mum-of-two Inas Himedan has talked about the terrifying moments she thought she, husband Yousef Khaled and young daughters Lina, four, and three-year-old Lujane would die.

A fund has been set up to help the family who were left with nothing and are now in an emergency council property in Crosland Moor.

The upstairs maisonette they were in on Hillhouse Lane in Hillhouse next to Bradford Road was also a council property and they had no insurance for their contents.

Inas revealed the family has been targeted before and were living in fear at the time of the fire which is being investigated as arson by the police. A 42-year-old man has been arrested.

Yousef has hayfever so Inas was asleep on the sofa around 2.30am on Wednesday morning when she thought she heard a noise. She went to the top of the stairs, looked down and could see the front door on fire with smoke pouring in.

She shouted at Yousef to get up and the couple grabbed their daughters from their bedroom and escaped into the living room to get as far from the fire as they could. There is only one entrance to the flat so they were trapped.

They opened the window and smoke then started to pour in from outside. They had no option but to leap for their lives. Yousef jumped first with Lina and landed heavily, hurting his leg. Inas then passed Lujane down to him before jumping. She’s been left covered in bruises.

“The flat was totally engulfed in flames by then and has been completely destroyed,” she said. “We’ve been left with nothing – we didn’t even have our shoes on. If I hadn’t woken up when I did by chance, we’d certainly not have survived.

“We’ve lived there for three years and it’s been a nightmare.”

Inas revealed that her car, a black Fiat Punto, was stolen the same night and Yousef’s car, which he needs for his work as a food delivery driver, has been attacked and damaged.

The family had been due to move to a council property elsewhere in Huddersfield and had bought furniture and other items for their new home but they have all gone up in flames, leaving the family heavily in debt. They still hope to move to this other home as soon as they can.

Inas said: “What’s happened to us has been very traumatic and we are all still so scared. We are struggling to sleep because we know we are very lucky to be alive today.”

Inas has a pharmacist background and has been studying for a Masters degree at the University of Bradford to qualify as a physician associate to work alongside GPs. The role includes taking medical histories from patients, performing physical examinations, diagnosing illnesses, seeing patients with long-term chronic conditions and analysing test results.

Anyone who can help the family can donate to their GoFundMe page HERE.

Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content and copywriting.

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