Aiat Mohammed still clutches one of the last babygrows her son wore.
Exhausted by grief, she holds the tiny blue and green outfit tight. Occasionally, when everything becomes too much, she lifts it to her face and breathes in deeply.
“I didn’t wash it,” she tells me, “because it’s got his scent”.
Her son, Akram, was just 15 weeks old when he died in hospital in London on 21 February.
His parents took him to hospital a day after raising concerns about his breathing. Doctors attempted CPR in front of them – but the little boy couldn’t be saved.
Aiat remembers the moment she saw the monitor flatline, and the medical team stepped away from his tiny body: “They said to me, ‘You can come and touch his head now’. I was saying, ‘Please, can you try again? Please, do the CPR again?’ And they said, ‘Sorry, we can’t. We can’t do anything anymore. We need to stop’.”
An inquest to determine the circumstances of how and why Akram died will be held in the summer.
The family lawyer, Mark McGhee, says a pathology report suggested he died of acute pneumonia due to a late-onset Group B Strep infection. But he fears the state of their crowded and mouldy housing association flat played a part.
Home riddled with damp
Photos make it clear their one-bedroom Camden home was riddled with damp, long before Akram – the couple’s third child – was born at the end of last year.
Black mould pushed the wallpaper from the walls, stains and damp kept coming back no matter how much they scrubbed and cleaned with harsh chemicals, and no matter how much they begged the housing association – Notting Hill Genesis – for help.
An independent inspection before the baby’s birth in December found the landlord “in breach of its duty to ensure the property is and will remain fit for human habitation”.
Mould was found on either the walls or ceiling in the single bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen. To make things even worse, the family say that after complaining about broken windows, a contractor arrived to seal them shut – making ventilation almost impossible.
Akram’s father Abdushafi Mohammed, a car mechanic from Sudan, told Sky News: “You felt it in the air, in your chest as soon as you walked into the flat.” Aiat remembers the “very, very rotten smell, very strange smell. You don’t want to be in there for more than a minute”.
Their baby began to rasp at night, and then they could hear a rattle in his chest during the day. But his worried parents were told he would “grow out of it”.
‘Drowning in fluids’
Savvas Panas, the chief executive of the Pillion Trust Charity, who has supported the family for years, told Sky News: “The child was strong, he was big and very healthy, but he was drowning, you could hear it, he was drowning in fluids.”
He claims to have spent months escalating concerns through the housing association, and Camden Council.
Abdushafi puts it simply: “No one helped us.”
The cause of death is unknown, an inquest has been set up, and a coroner is expected to rule on how and why he died later in the year.
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Patrick Franco, chief executive of Notting Hill Genesis, said: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Akram Mohammed and extend our sincere condolences to his family, their friends and neighbours. We will continue to support the family in any way we can during this difficult time.
“We know that this is a complex situation and will continue working with the relevant authorities as they conduct their investigations.
“No determination has been made by HM Coroner as to the cause of Akram’s death, and it would therefore be inappropriate to comment further or to speculate at this time.”
A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We have been in regular contact with Notting Hill Genesis – most recently this week – and they have assured us that they are working to identify a suitable home for the family. We will remain in touch, doing what we can, until this situation is resolved.”
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Richard Blakeway, housing ombudsman, said: “This is a tragic case and our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time.
“Whilst the complaint was still within the landlord’s complaints process when Akram passed away, and therefore we were unable to take it on as a formal investigation, we have offered support and advice to the family, including progressing their complaint with the landlord. We will continue to liaise with the family as this case progresses
“Landlords should take a zero tolerant approach to damp and mould. The introduction of Awaab’s Law is a positive step. However, landlords should not wait for its introduction to take further action, including proactively identifying damp and mould in homes rather than waiting for residents to report it.”
Complaints about conditions have risen sharply
Akram’s death comes as the housing ombudsman’s office reveals complaints about substandard living conditions in social housing are more than five times higher than they were five years ago.
The ombudsman deals with disputes between residents and social housing landlords in England, and found there were 6,380 complaints investigated in the year to March 2025, up from 1,111 in the year to March 2020.
Reasons for complaints included asbestos, electrical and fire safety issues, pest control, leaks, damp and mould.
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‘I would have ripped that family out of there’
Mr Panas said that despite their long-standing battles with the mould, he advised the family to stay in the sub-standard flat, knowing that if they left, they would lose social housing support by making themselves “intentionally homeless”.
But, if he could go back in time, he said: “I would have ripped that family out of there. I would say, just grab your children and get in the car and let’s go.”
