3 young children killed in apartment fire on Christmas Eve

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Three young children were killed and a man and woman were injured in a fire at a Gary, Indiana apartment building on Christmas Eve.

The siblings, Jayden Mitchell, 5, Alaya Pickens, 4, and their cousin Yaleah Cohen, 2,  were killed in the fire.

“I’m hurting real bad because everybody who knows me knows I loved my grandkids,” Yolanda Mitchell told ABC7. “I’m so glad I hugged and kissed them not knowing it was the last time.”

The mother of Jayden and Alaya declined to be identified but said she was devastated. She was hospitalized after the fire.

“I feel so horrible because I know my baby was calling out to me wondering where I was when I was just right there beside him and we got separated,” she stated, heartbroken. “And he couldn’t find me and I couldn’t see him through all the black smoke and stuff.”

Her husband was seriously injured in the fire and remains hospitalized. He told her to get out through a second story window. Once she landed, she said she saw her one-year-old on the bottom floor, so she ran and snatched her from the fire.

She says that her husband tried to save the other children but was unsuccessful.

“I do remember him saying, ‘I tried to get the babies. I tried to get the babies,’ but he couldn’t,” said the mother.

The fire started in the living room on the first floor and spread from there. The children were found upstairs; one was near the stairs, and the other two were still in their room.

Neighbors said they could hear the children screaming and didn’t know what was going on.

“All you could hear was the kids screaming,” according to neighbor Diamond Childress. “I can’t even sleep because I keep replaying the screams in my head over and over again.”

“All I saw was the flames. There really wasn’t anything anyone could do,” said Keisha Stokes, another neighbor.

The family thinks that they were targeted with a Molotov cocktail through their window. Police are still investigating the cause of the deadly fire.

Both the family and the community are struggling to cope with what has happened.

“I have three children that played with them and it is such a tragedy,” stated neighbor Janice Towner.