Dubai: It takes just 28 days before a mom who is recovered from COVID can hug her children again.
It is not so for many expatriate moms. They don’t know how long more they have to wait before meeting their kids.
Children have gone home to India for studies and other purposes. But lockdown placed an unbridgeable ocean between them, leaving them poles apart.
Moms have long been waiting for flight restrictions to lift and wait indefinitely in vain, woebegone.
Those separated from their mothers range from one-year-olds to college kids.
After campuses were closed following lockdown, students staying in hostels had nowhere to go.
Four month into lockdown, they have been put up at their relatives’ and at parents’ friends’ places, waiting to lift the flight ban.
Despite resuming flight service, parents working in essential service including health care cannot return.
Just as the human rights of children separated from their parents have not been discussed, a Whatsapp group started by Priya Firos, and Dr. Nida Salam do the talk.
More than hundred moms have joined the group so far and the group is working on a social media campaign.
The group will be submitting a request to the foreign affairs office.