Family moves to 'oven' tent in the desert

A Saudi man who could no longer afford paying rent bought a tent, a couple of mattresses and some kitchen tools and moved with his four little sons to live in the heart of the scorching desert. His foreign wife who had agreed to move with him has just fled, leaving the man to struggle with his four children.

Abu Ayoub had lived in a little house in the western town of Makkah but had to leave it after he could no longer pay rent because of a sharp rise in rents in the holy city. Given his limited financial resources, he thought of a tent.

“I cook iftar (evening meal) and suhour (dawn meal) during Ramadan for my sons but life is intolerable here,” he told the Saudi Arabic language daily Sabq at his new tent house in the desert near Taif close to Makkah.

Abu Ayoum, a government pensioner, had married a Saudi woman and got children from her. He later divorced her and got a foreign wife.

“I had a son from my second wife but she has just left me to live in Makkah because she could not stand life in a tent,” he said.

“I know life is very difficult here but I have no choice…we are living in a tent which is like an oven in summer and we are drinking hot water….all my sons have been denied school because they do not have birth certificates and other ID papers although the elder one is now around 11 years.”

Abu Ayoub appealed for Saudi authorities to help him and his son “before it is too late.”

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