An invidious system Six months ago, a young man from Ismailia Governorate flew off to Saudi Arabia to work there. A month later, Ahmed Bahaa Eddin had an argument with his employer in Tabouk, northwest Saudi Arabia near Jordan, and nothing has been heard of him since February. Ahmed's family live in a humble home in the Balabisa district of Ismailia. His mother, Fatma Abu Zeid, is confined to bed, overcome by grief, worrying about what has happened to her son. She says that he travelled to Saudi Arabia on 23rd November last year, guaranteed by a Saudi man called Mohamed bin Omran bin Abdou el-Harzi. The problem with this kafala or guarantee system is that it gives employers in the Gulf total power over Egyptians who work for them. The employers keep their passports and, if they think their Egyptian employees haven't done their job properly, they can refuse to return the passports and prevent them from flying home. It's really an invidious system. The arrangement was for Ahmed to work for Mohamed as his driver in Tabouk. But, shortly after arriving there, Ahmed phoned his family to say that Mohamed, his guarantor and employer, had forced him to work for another man, named only as Abu Khaled, who sells clothes. The two men made Ahmed sign IOUs, so there was no way out. Last December, Ahmed rang home again, to say that Mohamed had now forced him to work for another man, Abu Salem, in a company called Hafez Hamdan el-Anzi for Contracting. Shortly after starting to work for Abu Salem, Ahmed asked him to tear up the IOUs in his presence. They had a huge argument about this and Ahmed's family have only heard from him once more since then. His brother, Mohssen, said that the last time Ahmed rang home was in early February. He told Mohssen that he was being held prisoner on a farm 70km from Jeddah, the Saudi capital. Ahmed's family have asked Egypt's Foreign Ministry to find out what's happened to him and to get him home as soon as possible. An Egyptian friend of your columnist lived and worked in Tabouk for six years in the 1990s. He led the life of Reilly and the money was great. Many people clearly do very well out of working in Saudi Arabia, but not everyone, if poor Ahmed's story is anything to go by. (Al-Wafd) Something to beef about A man who accused his wife, a civil servant, of stabbing him in the stomach while he was asleep, because he refused to buy beef for their family for a whole month, as it has become so expensive, has retracted his complaint. His wife broke down and started crying when she was being questioned by detectives beside the hospital bed of her husband of a quarter of a century. So he relented and decided not to press charges against her. The incident came to light when the civil servant's unnamed 49-year-old husband, a driver, was admitted to Boulaq el-Dakrour General Hospital for treatment for stab wounds. There, he told doctors that it was his 45-year-old wife who had stabbed him. The couple had a big argument about the beef, then the victim went to bed. Like something out of a horror story, he awoke to find his wife standing over him with a knife. She then stabbed him. He managed to rush out of the flat and the neighbours heard his cries for help and took him to hospital. His wife told the detectives that she was feeling depressed, because her husband could no longer afford to provide for their domestic expenses, since life has become so costly for most Egyptians. The couple have a 22-year-old son – if they had more children, the knifing would presumably have happened sooner, as the knife woman would have had something to beef about earlier. (Al-Messa) Pride goes too far A young unemployed carpenter killed himself, because his father and paternal uncle refused to let him go out and attack one of their neighbours, who'd insulted him and beaten him in the street. Thirty-five-year-old Waleed Ezzat, stabbed himself in his family's home in southern Giza. They took him to Om el-Masriyeen Hospital where he died of his injuries. The deceased had been suffering from depression for the past five years and had received treatment for his condition. The neighbour had attacked Waleed a few days previously. On the day he died, the man stood in the street outside Waleed's home and told him he'd kill him if he set foot outside. An angry Waleed picked up a knife and decided to challenge him, but his father and uncle stopped him. The fact that he was unable to get his revenge on his assailant hurt Waleed's pride, so he killed himself. His family told the police that it was Waleed's assailant who had killed him, before they changed their story. (Al-Ahram and Al-Wafd) A father's fate We haven't had a fatal shooting at a wedding for quite some time in this column, but rest assured they're still happening. The latest such incident happened in el-Beheira Governorate, where a 40-year-old man called Abdel-Wahab Ibrahim began blasting off his shotgun at the wedding party of his daughter. But then the weapon jammed and the high-spirited Abdel-Wahab began fiddling with his gun to try and fix it. Without warning, it went off, blasting him in the face. The bride's father was rushed to Badr General Hospital, where he died of his injuries. (Al-Gomhuria) Dangerous driver demolishes donkey There was a frightful accident on the Wadi el-Rayan Road in Fayoum Governorate, when a speeding car ran into a donkey, killing the beast of burden and its owner, 60-year-old Ahmed Abdel-Ghani Baheej. The force of the impact sent the car into a roll, killing the driver, Mohamed Abdel-Tawwab (24), and one of his passengers, Mohamed Saeed (38). Mohamed Saeed's brother and a friend of theirs (both 24) were injured. (Al-Wafd) Jealous of his young wife Alexandria Criminal Court has sentenced worker to five years in prison, having found him guilty of burning his wife to death, because he was so jealous of her. The 53-year-old convict and his 24-year-old wife started arguing with each other soon after they got married. Their arguments got worse until the day when she went to see her mother without his permission. Her husband poured paraffin on her and set it alight. (Al-Ahram) Slaughterhouse supremo's Sahlia slaughter Police in Sharqia Governorate are anxious to arrest the thugs who kidnapped the owner of an automatic chicken slaughterhouse in Abu Zaabal, Qaliubia Governorate. They beat up Saeed Moustafa (44) and then drove with him to the desert near Sahlia. The idea was to force him to sign some blank cheques for the money he owed to a sales rep, a relative of his, once they arrived at a suitably remote, deserted area. But they made the mistake of sitting on him in the back of the car and he was dead by the time the got there. His body was found in the boot of his car. (Al-Gomhuria) Let's hope he's wrong Eight hundred families living in the village of el-Munira in the remote New Valley Governorate having been living in a state of fear, ever since one of their number, a six-year-old girl called Yasmine, disappeared from home on Sunday, May 2nd. "That morning, I left Yasmine playing outside our home and went to visit my elder sister, Noha, who lives with her husband in el-Kharga City. When I got home, my other daughter, Mona [aged 15], told me that she didn't know where Yasmine was. I waited until my husband got home from work and then we went looking for her," says the girls' mother, 35-year-old Amal Mohamed. Mona and Yasmine's 42-year-old father, Bekheit Mohamed, who works for the Local Council, says that this is the first time a child has ever gone missing in their village. Someone may know what has happened to Yasmine – Shaimaa, her four-year-old paternal cousin, who was playing in the street with her. She may have witnessed her being kidnapped. Ismail, Yasmine's paternal uncle, cannot imagine who could have wanted to kidnap her, if indeed she has been kidnapped. Mona says she first noticed that her little sister had gone missing was at 10am, an hour after their mother had gone off to el-Kharga. Gamal Soleiman, head of el-Munira village, says that there are about 2,500 people living there, a relatively small community. "We spent two days looking for Yasmine, lifting up all the manhole covers in the streets, in case she'd fallen down one of the holes, but all to no avail. Her disappearance now looks very suspicious." Let's hope he's wrong. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) Cheeky handbag snatcher Detectives have reunited a woman with her handbag containing her ‘Visa' card and a large sum of money, which had been stolen from her. A housewife was caught lifting the handbag by security cameras at a famous shopping centre in Zahraa el-Maadi called ‘Carrefour'. She used the card to withdraw LE150,000 from her victim's account. She spent LE138,000 of the cash on jewellery and use the other LE12,000 to buy three laptops. The suspect, who also spent LE2,000 of the LE5,000 in cash she'd found in the woman's handbag, came unstuck after buying the laptops at the same shopping centre and then having the cheek to return the next day to complain that one of them didn't work properly! The theft of her handbag containing the credit card had been reported by its owner, Jehan Fawzi (39). The thief was named as Saeeda Mohamed (35). Police found the laptops in her home and also the remaining LE3,000. As for the jewellery, that was in a very secure place: Saeeda had put it in a safe deposit box in a bank. (Al-Akhbar and Al-Wafd) E-mail: [email protected]
