Ajman, March 17: A debt-ridden Somali man has left his family of seven, including his young wife and six children, to the mercy of his creditors.
Without their only breadwinner, the family is struggling to have even their daily bread, even as the landlords and local grocers are refusing to help them any more.
Gulf News visited the family in their dark, nearly-bare house, where the 25-year-old mother is struggling to make ends meet.
Narrating her tragic story, Ashwqa Abdul Salam, the mother of six, said that she has no money and is surviving on charity of her neighbours.
"My neighbour brings me food daily," said the poor mother.
Unable to pay the fees, her children — three boys and two girls — were kicked out of the school, and now they spend most of the time on the streets.
Her eldest child Abdul Khaliq is 12, followed by Sumayah, 10, Aisha, 8, Abdul Salam, 7, Mohammad, 6, and Ayub, 5.
"All my children are out of school and stay most of the time playing outside as they get bored in the house without TV or any other activity," she said.
She added that she doesn't have money to even buy food items. However, they are buying some stuff from neighbourhood groceries on credit.
"They are keeping a record of all the items bought and we will have to pay for everything later but I don't know how I am going to do it, the debt just gets piled up," she said.
Her husband Abdullah Mohammad, who has been living in the UAE for a long time, was running a business that ran into losses, which forced him to escape to Ethiopia.
However, she is not sure why he hasn't been able to send any money so far as he is trying his luck out in Ethiopia.
"I don't know how long we will be able to survive like this, because I am afraid our landlord might throw us out of the house as we haven't paid the rent for the last two years," wondered the mother, visibly worried about the situation.
Mohammad has an accumulated debt of Dh120,000, which forced him to escape fearing he will be put behind bars for not clearing the debt.
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