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19 March 2024

Boy paralysed by stray bullet in RAK

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A five-year-old Emirati boy in Ras Al Khaimah appears to have been paralyzed after he was hit by a stray bullet fired by another local family celebrating the return of relatives from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Saeed Rashid Al Khatri was walking with his father in Suwan neighbourhood when the bullet hit his back and landed inside his backbone, Emirat Alyoum said.

“The father rushed his son to hospital where doctors told him that the bullet settled in his backbone and caused paralysis in the lower part of his body,” the paper said, quoting RAK’s CID chief Colonel  Salim Sultan Al Darmaki.

He said police rushed to the area where the firing took place just after last week’s Eid Al Adha, adding that they arrested the one who fired that bullet accidentally.

The paper quoted hospital sources as saying the bullet pierced through the lungs, the backone and the spinal cord canal, adding that the boy has been crippled.

“We have referred the boy to Rashid hospital in Dubai for further treatment and the safe removal of the bullet from the spinal cord,” a doctor said.
 

School bus turns turtle; students injured
 
A school bus in Al Ain was involved in a head-on collision with a vehicle and it topped over, while it was ferrying 10 children to school on Wednesday morning.

The accident occurred while the bus was trying to take a turn at a roundabout in the morning when traffic was at its peak in the area.

According to an eyewitness, the bus was not speeding but it flipped over due to the impact of the collision.

The students who sustained minor injuries were treated at the spot.

Others were treated at a nearby hospital after being rushed there by police officials. Only one girl remains in the hospital for longer treatment.
 

Smokers may be denied child custody in Saudi

Saudi Arabia’s judicial authorities are considering enacting laws depriving any of the separated parents from taking custody of their children in case they are smokers, a newspaper in the Gulf kingdom reported on Thursday.

Judges at courts across the country are discussing such a legislation which could be the first if its kind in the Arab region, the Arabic language daily Aleqtisadiah said.

“The courts are debating a law depriving a father or a mother from taking custody of children if he or she is found to be a smoker,” the paper said, quoting court sources.

“The law, which has to be approved by the cabinet, will give a non-smoker parent priority for taking custody of the children if the parents are divorced or separated because of the proven harm caused by smoking to children.”

The paper quoted the sources as saying the new law would consider smoking parents as those who drink liquor and that any court sentence on custody would be based on whether any of the separated parents are smokers.

The paper did not make clear what would happen if both separated parents are smokers.