Al Ain: A heartbroken father who lost a son in the deadly Al Ain road accident is now desperately searching for more information about a second son who was also on the same bus.
Waiting at Al Ain Hospital on Tuesday, the elderly Bangladeshi expat was teary-eyed, hoping someone would tell him his missing younger son was alive.
With a flowing white beard and a tanned wrinkled face, the father sat silently with an unblinking stare on a bench outside the mortuary, surrounded by a group of well wishers.
Some friends were seen trying to glean as much information as possible from officials and the crowd that had gathered around the hospital.
Earlier in the day, the father had identified the body of his elder son, who died along with 23 others in Monday’s horrific crash between a bus carrying the workers and a heavy-duty truck. Both the sons are in their twenties.
According to information provided by hospital and police officials, a total of 18 bodies have been identified, while six are yet to be identified.
At least two bodies are too disfigured to be identified, two people at the hospital morgue said, but this could be not be independently verified.
“He has no ID to show for his younger son, he’s not able to speak about it because he’s numbed by the tragedy,” said a fellow Bangladeshi, who requested the father not be approached.
Unable to confirm if his younger son too was at the morgue, the father eventually got up and was helped by others around him to walk away.
The grim task of identifying the loved ones who perished in the fatal road smash entered its second day on Tuesday.
Another Bangladeshi man told Gulf News he had also identified on Tuesday the body of his bother-in-law.
“I called his family – three young sisters and parents – back home. They had already heard the news. They were inconsolable, all I could hear was crying,” said Suhail.
“There were two casualties with the same name — Mohammad Faruq — and I was shown one body. It was him. He was a 27-year-old painter who had been in Al Ain for a year and a half. Now he’s gone,” said Suhail.
Several people, most of them Bangladeshis, gathered outside Al Ain Hospital morgue, looking for more information.
“Emergency workers told me that my friend is dead. But his body is not here,” said a Bangladeshi man. “The morgue says they know his name was listed under ‘dead,’ but his body is not with them. He has no family here, what do I tell his family back home?”
The 27-year-old worker from Bangladesh was a mason on his way to work on the bus.
“He leaves behind four sisters and parents. He came to Al Ain a year and a half ago, after working odd jobs to support his family in a Bangladeshi village, about 300km from the capital Dakha. He was my friend, but I can’t find his body.”
Another Bangladeshi man was relieved to discover his younger brother was alive — but fears the accident might have left him disabled.
“My brother’s backbone is broken, and his legs are also damaged because of that,” said Mohammad Maksood Rahman, 29.
“He’s not well enough to talk right now… I informed our parents back home. They have already called him six or seven times to know how he’s doing.”
Maksood Rahman said the accident victim, 25, is one of eight siblings — six brothers and two sisters.
“When I heard about the accident, I called him but his phone was switched off. I eventually traced him to Tawam Hospital. Thank God he’s alive and I pray he overcomes injury,” he said.
