Ajman: A housemaid who had stayed in the country illegally for more than 25 years was recently caught by police and given shelter.
Fatima Zalal Khan, an Indian in her late 60s absconded from her sponsor and was staying illegally since she arrived in the country in 1985.
According to police, Fatima lived with a Pakistani man called Akbar for many years. Two months ago Fatima was found abandoned in a remote area by police — she was roaming the roads in Masfout area in Ajman. in the cold at midnight without food or money. Akbar is now in police custody.
"She was very sick and was moving very slowly," police said.
She was covered with a blanket, given food and taken to the police station to check her identity.
Fatima was sent to the Ajman Department for Residency and Foreigners Affairs to get her details but was sent back to police without any identity documents.
Given shelter
As a humanitarian gesture from Brigadier Ali Abdullah Alwan, Chief of Ajman Police, the old woman was given shelter at Khalifa hospital waiting for help to send her back to her home country.
Brigadier Alwan said the woman does not have any identity documents or records of her living here.
"She was found by our police patrols — we had given her shelter and she is now receiving medical care at Khalifa hospital where she has been for over a month. She was an illegal resident here for more than 25 years according to her," he said.
"We will give her shelter at the hospital until she can go to her home," he said.
Nurses at the hospital, who were able to communicate with old woman, told Gulf News that Fatima said to them that she is originally from Bangalore but her family is in Mumbai.
"Fatima is very ill and paralysed and weak. She said she had family in Mumbai. She told us that she came more than 25 years ago here and she left her Arab sponsor since. She stayed here illegally and she worked in different places," a nurse said.
Gulf News visited the woman who looked scared and weak. Fatima begged for help to go home to her family. She was found with a few clothes which she kept in a plastic bag.
Ahmad Khan, head of Indian Association in Ajman, said that they in cooperation with police are trying to trace the woman's family back in India to issue her an outpass to go home.
