Representative image of acid
Credit: iStock Photo
New Delhi: When his toddler son came under an acid attack last month, Syrian refugee Raft Abmohimid came very close to losing his second progeny, having seen the death of another son in Bengaluru in a road accident two years ago.
Abmohimid and his 11-month-old son, as well as a Sudanese national, had acid thrown at them by a resident in West Delhi's Vikaspuri during a quarrel on September 30.
While the two men, both aged 28, took a discharge the same day from a hospital, the child was released only Wednesday having suffered 10 per cent burns in his chest, neck and eyes.
Abmohimid's elder son was 1 year 10 months old when he came under a bus.
The Syrian national had come to India in 2016 on a student visa and met his wife, his classmate, in Bengaluru. He moved to Delhi two years ago with his Thailand-born wife and son Ibrahim.
Recently, he lost his job at a call centre and with no means to support his family, camped outside the UNHCR office in Vikaspuri on a footpath as he waited on his plea for a more stable refuge.
He said he wants the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to settle him and his family in other country like Russia, Canada, or Norway.
"I lost my one-year-old kid Hussain in 2022 in a bus accident at Bengaluru, Karnataka. I have UNHCR membership and want them to consider my application and settle us to another country as soon as possible," he said.
Trouble mounted for him on September 27, when Nabil, the Sudanese national, got into a fight with a local resident.
When Ambohimid began recording the fight on camera he was threatened by the local man not to.
The UNHCR office was closed for two days and when on September 30 it opened again, the man along with few others came to his camp and threw a chemical like substance at him, his son, and Nabil, Abmohimid said.
"They wanted to throw our belongings out. Locals have issue with us staying near the UNHCR on footpath. I told them that we are sitting on road not in their house," he told PTI.
On his son's injury, he said, "Doctors have asked me to bring him every day to the hospital for dressing and they will finalise on Monday whether Ibrahim needs a surgery." Abmohimid said that the UNHCR told him Tuesday that it had selected a house in west Delhi's Uttam Nagar for him and if he consents to it, it would shift his family to the flat.
Hamza, another refugee from Yemen and a friend of Abmohimid, said "Nobody can forgive those who attack a kid." Rakesh Kumar, a local, has been arrested in connection with the acid attack, according to a police statement.
The attack were captured in a CCTV footage recovered from the spot. The attacker was accompanied by two more men, the FIR stated.
After the incident, Brave Souls Foundation, a south Delhi-based NGO led by acid attack survivors, extended help to Raft and his son.