A 5-year-old boy from Sheffield, England, died on Wednesday after falling out of a hotel room window. This is the son of a British embassy worker in Kabul, who has only just been brought to safety with his family because of the unsafe situation in Afghanistan.
Afghan Omar Majeedi has been responsible for Afghan migrants returning to Kabul as a humanitarian aid worker since December 2020. Majeedi, his wife and their three sons and two daughters were evacuated a few weeks ago when it became clear that the Taliban were trying to take over the country.
The family was first quarantined in Manchester because of the coronavirus directives, and was then taken in by a refugee organization at the OYO Metropolitan Hotel in Sheffield, east of Manchester. The hotel provides temporary shelter to at least ten other Afghan families due to the takeover of power in their country.
Omar Majeedi’s family had only been brought to safety for a few weeks when fate struck on Wednesday afternoon around half past three. 5-year-old Mohammed Monib Majeedi peered out from his bedroom, when suddenly the window opened a little further and the boy fell down. The victim fell from the ninth floor about 20 meters and ended up in the parking lot.
“I was in my room. I heard a sound, as if I heard a body fall” ” an eyewitness told The Mirror. The eyewitness, a man who works as an interpreter for the British in Afghanistan, stayed in the room next door. “His mother was in the room with him and she screamed, “my son, my son.” When I came out, I saw the ambulance and the police coming at the scene.” According to eyewitnesses, the mother was in great panic and screamed several times ‘save my son, please’.
Another Afghan Brit who stayed at the hotel spoke of a great tragedy for the family. ,They came here to save their lives, and then this happens. It’s so sad”, he tells The Daily Mail. A British refugee organisation hopes that the police will investigate carefully how the tragedy could have happened.
,,This is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts are with the family that has gone through so many traumas and suffering to reach the UK,” says Enver Solomon. “We do not know the details, but it is imperative that families coming from Afghanistan receive all the support they need and are placed in appropriate housing. They are vulnerable and often very traumatized.”
The British Home Office says in its first response that it is’ extremely saddened ‘by the tragic death of a child in a hotel in Sheffield’. The police are providing support to the family while the investigation is being conducted and we cannot comment at the moment.