Abu Dhabi: Having arrived in the UAE a year and a half ago, Mohammad Faruk Hussain began shopping for blankets, clothes and other little trinkets that might amuse his four sisters back home. His room was filled with the purchases, and the 27-year-old painter from Bangladesh was looking forward to going home this summer.

But a fateful ride to work tragically ended Hussain’s dreams when the bus he was in collided with a truck on the Al Ain-Abu Dhabi road. More than 20 people, most of them Bangladeshi, were killed in the horrific accident last Monday.

Hussain’ worried parents found out about their son’s death when they saw his name on a television news channel.

“He was listed among the victims. Since then his mother has barely uttered a word,” said Sohel Abul Kalam, a 31-year-old driver from Bangladesh who was one of Hussain’s closest friends.

Hussain would have returned home for the first time this year since he began working in the UAE.

“Now his return will no longer be a happy occasion,” Abul Kalam told Gulf News.

All this while, Hussain’s family had been surviving on his Dh 1,400 monthly earnings, Abul Kalam told Gulf News.

“They are very financially deprived, which is why his parents had sent Hussain, their only son, to the UAE to earn a living. Hussain used to send home about Dh 1,100 from his salary, and his parents hoped to use the earnings to get his sisters educated and settled. Now one of his sisters is of marriageable age but there is no source of income for the family,” Abul Kalam added.

Asked how they were planning to make a living, Abul Kalam said that any compensation the family received would be a big help.

“Hussain’s 50-year-old father is ill and unable to work, so they have nothing to live on,” he added.

Abul Kalam said that it had taken nearly three days for him to locate his friend’s body after the accident, and he finally tracked it to a public hospital in Abu Dhabi. On Tuesday, he will accompany Hussain’s body on a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight from Abu Dhabi to Dhaka. There, it will be received by Hussain’s father and taken to Kamal Nagar, a village in the Noakhali district of Bangladesh.

“I grew up in the same village with Hussain, and he was always a very well-behaved and pleasing person to be around. He would visit me at my workplace in Al Ain often,” Abul Kalam said.

“I will take home whatever I can of Hussain’s belongings, including the things he had bought for his family. It will be a sad day for all of us,” he added.