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Poor housing and preventable deaths
The death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak due to mould should motivate an urgent campaign of repairs to poor housing across Britain, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
Awaab Ishak (left) and (right) his father Faisal Abdullah, counsel for the family Christian Weaver, solicitor Kelly Darlington and Awaab's mother Aisha Amin (second right) outside Rochdale Coroner's Court

AWAAB ISHAK was two years old when he died of a respiratory condition in December 2020.

He died of acute airway oedema, suffocating to death, because of long-term exposure to mould in the one-bedroom flat he lived in with his parents.

The inquest into his death concluded last week that the cause of his death was “due to environmental mould exposure.” As this paper put it, the coroner’s full verdict is a “damning verdict on British housing conditions.”

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