Stranded Indian family marks end of ordeal with Eid

July 31, 2014

Stranded Indian

Riyadh, Jul 31: The ordeal of a stranded Indian family from Hyderabad finally came to an end with the climax being the wishful Eid Al-Fitr celebration with family and friends at home as they departed from King Khaled International Airport, Riyadh to India, celebrating the festival on Tuesday.

The Saudi government, the Indian Embassy in Riyadh, Shifa Al-Jazeera Hospital and some Indian social workers helped the family to go home after they could not facilitate their departure during the amnesty period due to non-availability of documents.

The saga of the family’s traumatic experience began with Mohammed Abdul Aziz from Hyderabad bringing his family here in 2000 and subsequently living illegally in the Kingdom.

Abdul Aziz, came to the Kingdom 19 years ago to work as an assistant pharmacist. He brought his wife Aneesa Begum and two children Hannan and Hadi on a family visa in 2000, but the same year he had a dispute with his employer and left his job to become a driver and do other small jobs for survival and livelihood.

However, he neglected to renew his iqama for 14 years and did not register his four children born in Riyadh subsequently — Noora, Aisha, Subhan and Mannan — due to poverty.

The children never went to school as they did not have proper documents like birth certificates.

However, they learned Arabic at home from their mother and could read the Holy Qur’an.

Aneesa Begum told Arab News that the family had not been able to make use of last year’s amnesty to return home. “We tried our best to get an emergency certificate to go home during the grace period but were unable to do so because we did not have the required documents.”

She said her husband had stayed illegally in the Kingdom because he wanted to support their poor family back home.

Luckily, Abdul Aziz’s sponsor never declared him an absconder (Haroob) although he had not been in touch with him for almost 15 years.

Abdul Aziz was subsequently held at the Shumaisi deportation center for several months after being detained in a routine inspection by the Riyadh police in the Batha area.

When he was arrested, the family faced further problems because their landlord evicted them for not paying the rent.

Furthermore, Abdul Aziz was facing separation from his family after languishing at the deportation center for months, but after the eviction from the rented house, the family stayed for some time at the SAPTCO bus stand in Azizia, where they were spotted by Indian social workers and eventually received aid from the Indian diplomatic mission, Shifa Al-Jazeera and Tarheel.

As the family requested assistance from the authorities to be granted final exit visas along with Abdul Aziz, their sole breadwinner, they received assistance from the embassy to return home on final exit visa on humanitarian grounds as they were without valid papers.

Indian Ambassador Hamid Ali Rao was regularly following the developments to facilitate the final exit for the stranded family, and embassy volunteer Shihab Kottukad along with other social workers helped the family get exit visas.

The family was moved to the Shifa Al-Jazeera polyclinic and provided initial accommodation.

Later, the embassy sponsored the family’s lodging and provided them with eight tickets to go home and transportation to the airport.

Shifa Al-Jazeera has also provided monetary help to the family amounting to 100,000 Indian rupees as financial assistance to enable them return home and resettle with family and friends.

Notably, the family celebrated Eid Al-Fitr here on Monday and reached home to participate in the festivities in Hyderabad on Tuesday, the day India and the rest of the world celebrated the festival sighting moon on Monday.

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News Network
November 27,2024

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Gaza health authorities say Israel’s military has "erased” over 1,400 Palestinian families in the besieged territory over the past year.

The Health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the Israeli regime "completely erased about 1,410 families, numbering 5,444 people, from the civil registry during the same period.”

It said that there were 3,463 families with only one survivor, while 2,287 families had more than one survivor.

In northern Gaza, Israel’s warplanes have continued dropping bombs over Palestinian families, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

It said one airstrike hit a family home in Jabalia, causing numerous casualties on Tuesday.

According to Gaza's civil defense agency, at least seven people were killed and several others wounded in the attack.

Another person was killed in a strike on a house in nearby Beit Lahia, a town in northern Gaza, which has been declared “a disaster area" by the municipality due to "the Israeli war of extermination and siege, and it has no food, water, hospitals, doctors, services, or communications."

The health ministry said, “Israeli forces killed 14 people and injured 108 others in three massacres of families in the last 24 hours.”

“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them.”

International organizations and leaders believe that Israel’s genocidal war, now in its second year, is a deliberate attempt to destroy the population of Gaza.

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News Network
November 17,2024

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An Israeli airstrike on the office of Syria’s Baath party in Lebanon’s capital Beirut has killed the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah's Media Relations Officer, Mohammad Afif, reports say.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli raid struck the Ba'ath party’s building in central Beirut district of Ras Al-Naba'a on Sunday, adding that the strike was an attempt to assassinate the leader of the resistance media front.

According to Baath Secretary-General Ali Hijazi, Afif was having a meeting in the Baath Party headquarters when Israel carried out the attack.

"Afif did not fight with weapons and did not lead a military unit in Hezbollah. Rather, he led a media unit," he said.

Reuters, Sky News, Al Jazeera and a number of Henrew-language media reported that Afif was killed in the Israeli strike.

However, Hezbollah has not yet confirmed Afif’s death or whether he was present at the site or not.

Earlier, the Lebanese Health Ministry said at least one person was killed and three others injured after an Israeli strike targeted a central district in Beirut.

Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network reported that five people were killed in the attack.

The latest development came after Afif said Hezbollah was behind the Caesarea operation and targeting Netanyahu’s home during a speech at the Ghobeiry area in the southern suburbs of Beirut on October 22.

This was the second assassination attempt on Afif in the last two months, after he survived an attack on the Hezbollah media relations office several weeks ago.

Israel launched a ground assault and massive air campaign against Lebanon in late September after a year of exchanging fire across the Lebanese border in parallel with the Gaza war.

At least 3,287 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the past year, with the vast majority in the past seven weeks. Another 14,222 have been wounded, mostly women and children.

In response to the ongoing aggression, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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News Network
November 14,2024

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The UN special rapporteur for Palestine has slammed Israel’s parliament for passing a law authorizing the detention of Palestinian children, who are “tormented often beyond the breaking point” in Israeli custody.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in a Thursday post on X, characterized the experiences of Palestinian minors in Israeli detention as extreme and often inhumane.

The UN expert highlighted the grave impact of this policy, noting that up to 700 Palestinian minors are taken into custody each year, a practice she described as part of an unlawful occupation that views these children as potential threats.

Albanese said Palestinian minors in Israeli custody are “tormented often beyond the breaking point” and that “generations of Palestinians will carry the scars and trauma from the Israeli mass incarceration system.”

She further criticized the international community for its inaction, suggesting that ongoing diplomatic efforts, which often rely on the idea of resuming negotiations for peace, have contributed to normalizing such human rights violations against Palestinian children and the broader population.

The comments by Albanese came in response to Israel’s parliament (Knesset) passing a law on November 7 that authorizes the detention of Palestinian children under the age of 14 for “terrorism or terrorist activities.”

Under the legislation, a temporary five-year measure, once the individuals turn 14, they will be transferred to adult prison to continue serving their sentences.

Additionally, the law allows for a three-year clause that enables courts to incarcerate minors in adult prisons for up to 10 days if they are considered dangerous. Courts have the authority to extend this duration if necessary, according to the Knesset.

The legislation underscores a shift in the treatment of minors and raises alarms among human rights advocates regarding the legal and ethical ramifications of detaining children and the conditions under which they may be held.

Thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently in Israeli jails—around one-third without charge or trial. Also, an unknown number are arbitrarily held following a wave of arrests in the wake of the regime's genocidal war on Gaza.

Since the onset of the Gaza war, the Israeli regime, under the supervision of extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has turned prisons and detention centers into “death chambers,” the ministry of detainees and ex-detainees’ affairs in Gaza says.

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, and other forms of abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been normalized across Israel’s jail system, reports indicate.

Over 270 Palestinian minors are being detained by Israeli authorities, in violation of UN resolutions and international treaties that forbid the incarceration of children, as reported by Palestinian rights organizations.

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