Stranded widow flies back to home-alone daughter
Family torn apart by tragedy reunites after a Gulf News report
Features Editor — Special Reports
An Indian woman whose husband died from coronavirus in Tanzania while she was in London will return to her daughter in Dubai shortly past midnight tonight.
“I am shattered yes, but at the same time I am relieved that I am flying back home to my teenage daughter. She’s on her own in Dubai and struggling to come to terms with this huge tragedy. I just can’t wait to hug her and mourn our loss,” Sabeena Dhalla told Gulf News from Leicester yesterday shortly before heading to London’s
I am shattered yes, but at the same time I am relieved that I am flying back home to my teenage daughter. She’s on her own in Dubai.”
Sabeena Dhalla | UAE resident
Heathrow Airport to board the EK 002 Flight to Dubai.
Sabeena’s husband Inayat Ali Dhalla, a long-time UAE resident, was on a two-day business trip to his home country Tanzania where he contracted coronavirus while stuck in Dar es Salaam due to Covid-19 flight suspension. He was put on a ventilator at Aga Khan Hospital but died on April 24 following a cardiac arrest, said his son Mujtaba, 23, who lives and works in Tanzania. Inayat was 47.
When Mujtaba broke the devastating news, Sabeena was with her ailing mum in Leicester in England while her daughter Hadiya, 17, was alone in the family’s Al Ghusais apartment in Dubai. Since then Sabeena had been pleading with UAE authorities to help her fly back to Dubai on humanitarian grounds.
Touched by the gesture
A Gulf News story highlighting her plight set things in motion.
Sabeena said if it were not for the May 3 report she would have been still stranded. “I would like to thank the UAE government, Gulf News and social worker Juhi Yasmeen Khan for making this reunion possible,” she said, fighting back tears.
Hadiya who’s battling trauma said she will be go to the airport to receive her mom with an officer from the diplomatic counsellor affairs section. “In fact the officer himself called me on Saturday. I am touched by the gesture,” she said.
Sabeena, who was due to return to the UAE before Ramadan, said her husband’s sudden death has left her devastated.
“My whole world has caved in. We were planning to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Inayat said loved me deeply and pampered me with gifts. Just a few days before his death, we held a video chat during which he showed me the abayas, designer suits, hand bags jewellery he had bought.”