Dubai Police help reunite family

Mother calls 999 asking for help as she can’t afford children’s basic needs

Dubai Police have helped reunite an Emirati mother and her children after she left them in a one-bedroom flat with no food.

Desperate and penniless, the mother called 999, threatening to abandon her children because her ex-husband refused to help her raise the children and pay alimony, Dubai Police said yesterday.

Gulf News met the Emirati mother Ebtisam, 36, who left her four children aged 8-13 inside their home in Al Warqa area.

“I was confused and lost and I couldn’t provide money for my children’s needs. I feel sorry and terrible for what I did but I had no other options just to call Dubai Police asking for help,” the Emirati mother told Gulf News at Al Rashidiya police station.

Brigadier Saeed Hamad Bin Sulaiman, Director of Al Rashidiya Police Station, said the children were staying in the country illegally. The father, an Arab expat, had failed to renew the residence visa of his children.

“She called police saying that she left her four children inside a flat in Al Warqa and then hung up. She claimed that she doesn’t have a job and her Arab ex-husband is not paying her money. Her children were staying illegally in the country because the father didn’t renew their residency,” Brig Bin Sulaiman said.

“The house was old and even rain leaked into the house. We put the children in a two-bedroom flat and renewed their residency and found a decent job for the mother so she could be reunited with her children.”

Reem Al Ameri from the victim support programme at Dubai Police said that it was hard for them to help the children because they were alone.

Police sat with the mother later and convinced her to return to her children after moving them to a flat with the help of the Community Development Ministry.