Fatima Muhammad

Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH – She is old, lonely and infirm. She prefers to be addressed as ‘grandma’.



Mariam Abubackar, 73, was found at the Indian consulate to which she was sent from the deportation center about a month ago.



Muhammad Ali, a social worker, shifted her from the consulate to a local polyclinic, where she is being looked after by volunteers.



The grandma arrived in Makkah about 40 years ago. She said that she was staying not far from the Grand Mosque with her brother and niece with whom she has lost touch. Now she has no one to look after her. So she wants to go to her home country, India. But she has lost her passport which had the number and date of her entry into the Kingdom.



She was taken to the deportation center, but she did not have any documents with her. So she was sent to the Indian consulate.



Now Muhammad Ali and other social workers have helped her get a new passport, but the passports department wants her entry date and number so as to allow her to formalize the exit procedures.



Caught in the paperwork, the grandma is counting days when she will be able to finally see her relatives back home. She is totally dejected and depressed. She has even stopped taking food.



With wrinkles on her face and furrows of panic and tension on her forehead and prayer beads in her hand, the grandma prefers to keep to herself.