New York City officials have renamed a street in the Bronx neighbourhood in  honour of 17 Gambians who lost their lives in a fire tragedy last year. 

The city officials renamed the street where the devastating fire tragedy occurred to honour the memory of the victims largely Gambians and other African migrants.

181 Street in the Bronx is now officially known as 17 Abdoulie Touray Way. 

The late Abdoulie Touray, an influential Gambian cleric and community leader and the first African migrant to settle with his family in the block of flats where the fire tragedy occurred in January 2022. 

The building in the Twin Parks neighbourhood was known by many as “Touray Kunda,” despite many other Gambians with different family names living there. 

“We all grew up knowing building 333 as, ‘Touray Kunda’. It was here that our parents, the first wave of African immigrants in the Bronx, in the 1980s and 90s marked their foundation as their new home in search of new opportunities,” Fatoumatta Waggeh, a Gambian youth leader in the Bronx, told the New York Times.

“The first generation here saw Abdoulie Touray as grandfather because migration would keep us oceans away from our grandparents,” she added.

Touray, who was born in Sotuma Sere, a village in Eastern Gambia, Upper River Region, emigrated to the US in the 1970s. 

His family said the influential cleric, who had a vast experience travelling the world, could speak nine different languages, including English and French.

He was said to have provided Islamic services for African American celebrities including Muhammed Ali and Cicely Tyson.