Sana’a: A heavily indebted Yemeni man gave in to psychological pressure and hanged himself after being unable to pay off his debt, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.
The 35-year old Ahmad Mohammad Abdu Al Yafai, from Jibla district, in Ibb province, decided to end his life after being engulfed with despair as a result of falling into debt.
Ahmad’s brother Faisal told Al Jumhuriah daily that his brother’s misery began when he recently borrowed SR20.000 (Dh20,422) to buy a visa to Saudi Arabia after being promised a job there. When Ahmad arrived in the kingdom, his sponsor backpedaled on his promise and told him that he had no job for him. As the kingdom’s recently enacted laws require that foreign workers should only work with their sponsors, the man was arrested and asked to pay more money for changing his sponsor.
According to Faisal, since he was broke, Saudi authorities deported him and he returned home empty-handed. Hampered by the debt, Ahmad isolated himself from his mother, brothers, sisters and four children and indulged in heavy use of qat, the narcotic leaf that is widely consumed in Yemen.
The paper said that the family jolted out of their beds on Thursday at midnight when they heard his sister crying after finding him hanging in his room.
