Fire Heavily Damages Mosque in New York
Firefighters were called at 5:59 a.m. for the blaze at 986 Gates Ave., the FDNY said.
The building houses the Sunshine Express Deli and the Brooklyn Broadway Jame Masjid and Islamic Center.
The fire started inside the deli on the first floor. It was raised to two alarms, but was brought under control at 7:33 a.m., the FDNY said.
Heavy smoke spread upstairs to the mosque, where prayer services were just about to end. Prayer books and furniture inside were destroyed.
"It’s like we’re helpless. We are in the street now,” president of the mosque Smuglz Hussein said.
The mosque, which has served the community there since 2004, has 250 members, who are now struggling to find a new place to worship for the holy month of Ramadan, which starts in a few weeks. It is now boarded up.
"It’s horrible, it’s horrible. It’s a disaster, I don’t know. We’re like almost crying,” Hussein said. "People are asking, ‘Where are you going to pray?’ So I said, ‘I don’t know.”
There were no injuries in the fire and the cause was under investigation Saturday, the FDNY said.
Source: CBS News
