UAE | General
Tough life: Bed of thorns
Sauntering through Al Seef Park, Jay B. Hilotin is greeted by an appalling spectacle - people roughing it out under the open sky since they have nowhere else to sleep
- Jay B. Hilotin, Chief Reporter
- Published: 00:00 July 29, 2010
- Image Credit: Ahmed Ramzan, Gulf News
- These men are victims of hard times and with no money in their pockets or a roof over their heads, they have made this park their refuge at night
Dubai: It's 3.30am at Dubai Creek.
Across the road, opposite the sprawling British embassy compound at Al Seef Park, more than a dozen jobless people - mostly Asians - are struggling to get some sleep in the stifling heat and humidity of July.
No, this lot of Dubai's destitute is not trying to emulate someone like Nicholas Warner, a jobless Briton who recently gained celebrity status after BBC ran a story about him. The man was found sleeping rough at the same place after his passport was confiscated due to credit card payment defaults and he was unable to land a job (the momentary fame led to Warner getting a debt repayment deal from the bank).
Rough sleepers
These men are victims of hard times and with no money in their pockets or a roof over their heads, they have made this park their refuge at night.
Most of these rough sleepers hang their clothes on the hedge and wash up or take a shower in the public toilet.
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Mamun, 23, an Indian park cleaner who works a 5pm-to-5am shift, told XPRESS: "About 15 to 20 people come here each night because they have no room."
Some of these men even have a ready script for anyone who ventures to ask them why they are at the park at such an odd hour. Ganesh, 27, from Karnataka, India, said he works for a restaurant in Jumeirah and came to the park to exercise.
However, on further probing, he admitted that he had no money to afford a room, which is why he was there in the open. Ganesh said he once ran a labour supply company for a Dubai Metro subcontractor and was jailed for six months due to bounced cheques to the tune of Dh400,000 after his partner duped him.
"I've served time for the criminal case and I've yet to face the civil case and pay Dh400,000," he said. "I have another contract to supply about 30 labourers for installing fibre optic cables for etisalat in Bur Dubai area, but I have no working capital."
Unlike Warner and Ganesh, many of those sleeping here are emaciated labourers stuck in an economic limbo, unable to afford even a mobile phone.
Hide and sleep
To avoid being noticed by authorities or the occasional joggers at this unholy hour, most of them doze off on the ground behind a hedge.
"I have no room and I've been sleeping here for the last three months," said Srinu, 25, a former construction worker from Hyderabad, India. "We're waiting to find work, but we've not been lucky," he said, adding his passport is with a construction firm that had shut down.
"I don't want to go home because my family's financial situation is already bad," said Shusheej Pathirat, 29, from Kerala.
He claims he and his friends survive on dates from palm trees in the park and drink water from the nearby mosque.
"If we're lucky, we get left-over food from the dhows [that operate dinner cruises for tourists]," said Pathirat, who recently lost his job as a security guard.
His visa expires on July 31.
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