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29 March 2024

Yemeni woman ‘presumably buried’ in Saudi returns home

Picture: SUPPLIED

Published
By Staff

An 82-year-old Yemeni woman who was knocked over by a car while performing pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia last year was to fly back home on Monday, nearly eight months after her family presumably buried her in the Gulf kingdom.

Hasnaa Al Faqih had come with her son to Saudi Arabia for Umra (mini pilgrimage) during the fasting month of Ramadan in 2012 but her son later lost her after she was knocked over by a car and rushed to the intensive care unit at King Faisal hospital in the western town of Makkah, according to the Saudi Arabic language daily Sabq.

Her son was then taken to another hospital to identify a body, which he thought was his mother. A few days later, the body was buried and the man returned to his mountainous village in Northern Yemen, where Hasnaa was mourned by family.

A few weeks ago, Hasnaa regained consciousness and her condition started to improve. She told her nurse that she would like to go back home and gave him the name of her village, of which he had never heard.The nurse, Saleh al Gamdi, then started contacting friends and Yemeni people in a bid to locate Habbour village. After a few days, he found a Yemeni man who knew the village and her residents, the paper said.

“The Yemen man is a mechanic who works in the same area where Gamdi lives…he told Gamdi that he knows that the woman and her husband and that they were both dead…but Gamdi told him Hasnaa was still alive,” it said.

“The Yemeni man then contacted the woman’s family which belongs to the famous Al Ahmar tribe…her son and a tribe chief arrived in Saudi Arabia yesterday and were to fly back to Yemen with Hasnaa today….the big questions now is who was the woman who was buried in Makkah last year and believed to be Hasnaa.”