UAE | Visa
Epileptic youth faces deportation
A man's plea to sponsor his 22-year-old epileptic son was rejected by Sharjah Naturalisation and Residency Department due to legal restrictions, Gulf News has learnt.
- By Bassma Al Jandaly, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:33 December 29, 2008
- Image Credit: Supplied Picture
- Mahdi Khalid Yousuf is currently living with his family in Ajman without a residency visa.
Sharjah A man's plea to sponsor his 22-year-old epileptic son was rejected by Sharjah Naturalisation and Residency Department due to legal restrictions, Gulf News has learnt.
The Somali man who was born here and has lived here all his life, is facing deportation because of residency law restrictions.
Mahdi Ahmad Khalid Yousuf was born in Abu Dhabi at Al Corniche Hospital in 1986.
He is currently living with his family in Ajman without a residency visa. His family is afraid that he will be forced to leave the UAE.
Mahdi was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was six months old. Medical reports issued by Khalifa Hospital in Ajman confirmed that he suffers from epilepsy and needs life-long medication and treatment.
Ahmad Khalid Yousuf, Mahdi's father who works for a company in Sharjah, told Gulf News that he has lived in the UAE since 1966 and that all his five children were born here.
Unstable situation
"We have never been to Somalia due to conflicts and the unstable situation over there. I have two sons who are now over 18. I am not able to sponsor them because the UAE residency law will not allow parents to sponsor their sons when they are over 18 years," Khalid Yousuf said.
"I have approached Sharjah Naturalisation and Residency Department several times, but in vain," he added.
He added that his children had been without residency visas since 2005. "Officials at the department used to send me from counter to counter and from official to official. Some of them asked me to type the necessary papers and to bring Dh5,000 for sponsorship but when I did that my application was rejected by another official," he said.
He said he could not send his sick son to Somalia.
"My son is suffering from epilepsy and he needs to take medicine all his life," he said.
"I have no idea what to do. I am trying to help my other son Mahmoud find a job but for my sick son Mahdi I do not know what to do. I have lived here for the past 42 years and I respect the law but I wish officials would take Mahdi's case into consideration," he said.
Mahdi's mother, Barlin Ahmad Saleh, told Gulf News that her son studied in school here but the school refused to give him his certificate because he was without a residency visa.
"Officials at the residency department in Sharjah will not listen to us. We tried to explain our problem to them but they will not allow us even to talk with them. They ask about our documents and when they see that they are not what they need they turn their backs on us," she said.
Clarification
A senior official from the Sharjah Naturalisation and Residency Department said that according to the country's residency law, expatriate men who live with their parents here and who are over 18 years old must study at an educational institution and must be sponsored by this institution or they have to work in order to be sponsored by their workplace.
"Expatriates cannot sponsor sons who are over 18-years old," he said.
Indiscriminate: Common condition
Epilepsy is a physical condition that starts in the brain (a neurological condition.) It is a sign that the way a person's brain works is sometimes disrupted. When this happens, a person may suddenly have a seizure.
Many people will have a single seizure at some point of time in their lives, but this does not mean that they suffer from epilepsy. If a person has epilepsy it means they have had more than one seizure beginning in the brain.
Epilepsy is the most common serious neurological condition in the world.
Anyone can develop epilepsy; it occurs in all ages, races and social classes. The reasons why some people develop epilepsy are not straightforward and there are many possible causes. Whatever the reason, a person's seizure threshold will play a key role.
- www.epilepsynse.org
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