An Indian woman, living in the United Arab Emirates, has reached out to seek help to save her third child, after losing the first two to ailments.
Sana, from Kerala, has been living in UAE for more than a decade and her life has been nothing but an endless chain of tragic incidents, she told Khaleej Times.
Sana lost her daughter to cancer and son to a brain defect. Adding to her misery, her husband, Shabaz is suffering from Colon cancer and the family has now gone bankrupt dealing with all medical issues.
Sana told the newspaper that her third child has not been able to speak yet.
According to the publication, Sana met her husband while working in a local hospital as technicians. “I converted to Islam from Christianity and changed my name from Reena Chacko to Sana. My family in Kerala didn’t accept my choice but in 2003 we got married at Shabaz’s native place of Hyderabad,” the paper quoted the Indian women as saying.
The couple had their first daughter in 2008 and “those were the happiest years of my life until in 2012,” says Sana after which her life has never been the same again. “I saw a swollen blue color patch in her stomach. Zarqa was diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), a rare childhood cancer. Her internal organs failed, and she left us in just two months. We were devastated. It still hurts by the very thought that we couldn’t save her. In 2013, my second child, Mohid was born with a brain defect. He was placed on home ventilator support and died this May,” she told the paper.
Sana told the newspaper that her husband was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2015. “He underwent three surgeries. At one stage doctors told me Shabaz won’t survive but he recovered by 2016.”
Meanwhile, the restaurant which the couple opened in 2013 also declined as she could not cope up with the tragedies and manage the business at the same time. “I couldn’t pay attention to (the restaurant) as I had to take care of Shabaz and Mohid. We had no revenue and debt rose. Finally, we shut that restaurant as we couldn’t recover even rent amount. We couldn’t leave this place as my son was on ventilator. This May, Mohid left us in his sleep. Non-payment of credit card dues and personal loans resulted in Shabaz being jailed last month. We have a settlement of under Dh40,000. We haven’t cheated anyone but just that we never had time to recover from tragedies.”
Talking about her third child, she told the newspaper, “Amaan doesn’t speak and hasn’t called me ‘amma’ yet. I have lost two. Maybe we don’t have God’s blessing to raise children. I have lasted this far by selling my ornaments but now got no money to feed my child. We haven’t paid room rent for four months and will soon end up in the streets. I don’t know how long I can keep fighting like this. We have no relatives or even friends to support.”
Last month, an Indian family which had been staying illegally in the UAE for 30 years without valid identification, received passports for four of their five adult children, after the family approached the Indian embassy.