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Ummul-Khayr Sadri Abdullah
Family members of Ummul-Khayr Sadri Abdullah (pictured), a Tanzanian girl who was arrested in Kenya this week, allegedly on her way to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab militants have expressed gratitude to Kenyan police.
A close relative, who talked to The Guardian on Sunday, this week, expressed the agony that the family went through in search of the 19-year-old girl who first disappeared from Sudan before her arrest in Mombasa.
“We thank God for her arrest for we do not know what would have happened to her had she managed to reach the said destinations,” he said, adding; “after all she does not have a serious case to answer as long as she was yet to join the alleged terrorists, and I hope the Kenyans will do justice.”
He added: “Family members were shocked by the news of her disappearance and we finally conducted special prayers, ‘dua’ in her favour on 29 March, a day before news of her arrest emerged” said the uncle.
“Her paternal grandmother almost collapsed on news that her granddaughter disappeared from the university and that her whereabouts were unknown,” the uncle said, referring to the state of panic and disbelief of the incident that rocked the family.
Ummul-Khayr, who was studying medicine at International University of Africa in Khartoum, reportedly went missing on March 23 this year.
The following day, her sister who thought she could have gone out with friends was forced to report the matter to the police when her young sister did not show up.
News of her disappearance was revealed by her elder sister, Sumaiyya Sadri Abdullah Said (20) who is also studying medicine at the same university.
A WhatsApp short message that Summaiyya sent to the uncle, which this paper has seen reads, “I have not seen her up to now, we have reported to the police and just waiting if there could be any news from them.”
Feisal Abdullah Said who lived with the family for over three years at Kibweni in Zanzibar described the teenage girl as a soft spoken, sharp and intelligent.
He said Ummul-Khayr, the second born in a family of six took them by surprise by her decision to vanish from Sudan. More strangely, due to her religious background, it was unbelievable that the girl would join any terrorism group.
According to Feisal, the children grew up in close care of the parents, Dr Sadri Abdulla Said who works in Oman and Ms Talhiya Massoud, a teacher at Chukwani Muslim College in Zanzibar.
The children got international exposure with their father who was studying abroad. Both Ummul-Khayr and Sumaiyya lived with their father in USA while he was undertaking master’s degree.
Between 1997 and 2000, they lived in Norway where the father was taking PhD When they moved back to Zanzibar, Ummul-Khayr, who was enrolled in standard two and the sister in standard three had proved too smart and were promoted to standard three and four respectively.
While in class six, the duo sat for the class seven national examinations and passed well, thus skipped seventh grade and joined secondary school.
Their exemplary performance saw them pushed to form three and as they did while in primary, registered for the form four national examinations and passed.
The duo did not join advanced level secondary education and as luck was always on their side, they got a government scholarship to study at the International University of Africa in Khartoum, Sudan.
From her disappearance and ultimate arrest, the teenager did not communicate with any close relative. Her father was initially forced to travel from Oman where he works to Khartoum and follow up on the disappearance reports.
When this reporter reached Dr Sadri on phone Thursday, he declined to discuss the matter over the phone, in fear of being misquoted by the media on an issue that is still under investigation.
“I would not wish to talk to media on this now, I think the matter has been deliberately misreported to provoke my family to issue clarifications,” he told this paper on phone from Mombasa.
The media had earlier speculated that Dr Sadri and her spouse, a mother to Ummul-khair were lecturers at her university in Sudan and that he was lying when he said he had travelled to Mombasa from Oman to deal with what had befallen his daughter.
Dr Sadri suggested that the speculation had implied that the parents had collaborated with Ummul-khair in the allegedly terrorism conspiracy, said the uncle.
This reporter later learnt that the family has also organised another special prayer this week for the arrested teenage girl.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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