Around 30 friends and supporters of a woman who has been living in a hotel room for two months banged on the locked doors of City Hall today to demand her situation is sorted out. Selma Muuse and her young autistic son Ahmed have been trying to find alternative accommodation after escaping a fatal fire at their council tower block, which left them too traumatised to return.
Members of the community union Acorn from the Somali community in Easton and Barton Hill joined their fellow members from across Bristol to try to present a list of demands to the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, asking for action over their plight. The mother and child have been moved around between five different hotels but the council refused to continue paying the bill a week ago, as a dispute began about what should happen to them.
Bristol City Council offered her new accommodation but the only suitable home will not be ready until mid-December, and Selma says she was told they must return to their old flat at Twinnell House in the meantime. Earlier this week she spoke of how she had declined to leave the hotel room as she was too worried to go back, but the water and electricity serving their room was turned off.
