• An image of Farouq Mohammad, 5, dangling from the window of the Sharjah residential tower he lives in. Photo: Supplied
    An image of Farouq Mohammad, 5, dangling from the window of the Sharjah residential tower he lives in. Photo: Supplied
  • Mohammed Rahmatullah, from Nepal, leapt into action after he saw Farouq dangling from the window. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
    Mohammed Rahmatullah, from Nepal, leapt into action after he saw Farouq dangling from the window. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
  • Farouq Mohammad, 5, from Syria, was rescued after hanging from the 13th floor apartment window. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
    Farouq Mohammad, 5, from Syria, was rescued after hanging from the 13th floor apartment window. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
  • Exterior of the building in Sharjah where the incident happened. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
    Exterior of the building in Sharjah where the incident happened. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
  • Farouq safe at home on Wednesday. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National
    Farouq safe at home on Wednesday. Photo: Salam Al Amir / The National

Hero watchman saves young boy from Sharjah high-rise


Salam Al Amir
  • English
  • Arabic

Latest: Police honour two high-rise heroes who saved young boy

A hero watchman helped save a young boy dangling from a window of a high-rise in Sharjah on Tuesday.

Mohammed Rahmatullah, a father-of-two from Nepal, was busy with a team of maintenance workers at about 8am when they spotted five-year-old Farouq Mohammad clinging to a window ledge on the 13th floor.

He immediately alerted the emergency services and asked nearby workers to stand at the bottom of the building with a blanket to catch the boy if he fell.

I asked one of the workers to call the police and at the same time asked three other workers to hold a blanket below just in case.
Mohammed Rahmatullah,
watchman

“We were doing maintenance work on the lifts in the building since early morning,” Mr Rahmatullah told The National.

He said that after seeing the boy, “there was no time”.

“I asked one of the workers to call the police and at the same time asked three other workers to hold a blanket below just in case.”

Mr Rahmatullah then raced to the apartment with two maintenance workers to try to get inside.

On his way up to the apartment, he called the boy’s father, who was not in the building.

With the father's permission, “an Egyptian tenant, a maintenance worker and myself broke open the door of the flat”, he said.

Farouq Mohammad dangling from the window of the high-rise building in Sharjah. Photo: Facebook
Farouq Mohammad dangling from the window of the high-rise building in Sharjah. Photo: Facebook

“I imagined one of my two sons in that scenario and I nearly broke into tears. I knew we had to act quickly because a minute can make a difference between life and death.”

While one of the three men grabbed the boy’s arm, the other two pulled him up to safety.

Speaking to The National from the family's apartment on Wednesday, Farouq’s mother, Lama, 27, from Syria, said she briefly left Farouq alone in the apartment on Tuesday morning to go and buy food for breakfast from the market on the ground floor of the building.

She said he was asleep in the bedroom when she left.

“I have never done this before and I will never do it again,” she said.

“God saved my son for me. This was a miracle that I thank god for.”

The mother-of-three said she had been out for a few minutes when her husband called to tell her Farouq was hanging from the window.

“He received a call from the watchman then called me,” she said.

She returned at 8.10am to find “a huge crowd under the building”.

“The few minutes that it took to hear that my son was safe felt like decades.”

She said all the windows in the property were secured, but the one Farouq climbed out of was open about 10cm.

“It has been a very strong lesson for me and for all parents because it is still beyond my comprehension how my son managed to slip through that tiny space,” she said.

“We have to watch our children all the time.”

Sharjah Civil Defence said by the time their crews arrived to the building the boy was safe and back inside his family’s property.

Sharjah police are investigating.

Understand What Black Is

The Last Poets

(Studio Rockers)

RACE SCHEDULE

All times UAE ( 4 GMT)

Friday, September 29
First practice: 7am - 8.30am
Second practice: 11am - 12.30pm

Saturday, September 30
Qualifying: 1pm - 2pm

Sunday, October 1
Race: 11am - 1pm

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

England World Cup squad

Eoin Morgan (capt), Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wkt), Tom Curran, Liam Dawson, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, James Vince, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

The biog

Occupation: Key marker and auto electrician

Hometown: Ghazala, Syria

Date of arrival in Abu Dhabi: May 15, 1978

Family: 11 siblings, a wife, three sons and one daughter

Favourite place in UAE: Abu Dhabi

Favourite hobby: I like to do a mix of things, like listening to poetry for example.

Favourite Syrian artist: Sabah Fakhri, a tenor from Aleppo

Favourite food: fresh fish

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

SUE%20GRAY'S%20FINDINGS
%3Cp%3E%22Whatever%20the%20initial%20intent%2C%20what%20took%20place%20at%20many%20of%20these%20gatherings%20and%20the%3Cbr%3Eway%20in%20which%20they%20developed%20was%20not%20in%20line%20with%20Covid%20guidance%20at%20the%20time.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22Many%20of%20these%20events%20should%20not%20have%20been%20allowed%20to%20happen.%20It%20is%20also%20the%20case%20that%20some%20of%20the%3Cbr%3Emore%20junior%20civil%20servants%20believed%20that%20their%20involvement%20in%20some%20of%20these%20events%20was%20permitted%20given%20the%20attendance%20of%20senior%20leaders.%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22The%20senior%20leadership%20at%20the%20centre%2C%20both%20political%20and%20official%2C%20must%20bear%20responsibility%20for%20this%20culture.%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20found%20that%20some%20staff%20had%20witnessed%20or%20been%20subjected%20to%20behaviours%20at%20work%20which%20they%20had%20felt%20concerned%20about%20but%20at%20times%20felt%20unable%20to%20raise%20properly.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20was%20made%20aware%20of%20multiple%20examples%20of%20a%20lack%20of%20respect%20and%20poor%20treatment%20of%20security%20and%20cleaning%20staff.%20This%20was%20unacceptable.%22%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg
Real Madrid (2) v Bayern Munich (1)

Where: Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
When: 10.45pm, Tuesday
Watch Live: beIN Sports HD

How will Gen Alpha invest?

Mark Chahwan, co-founder and chief executive of robo-advisory firm Sarwa, forecasts that Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) will start investing in their teenage years and therefore benefit from compound interest.

“Technology and education should be the main drivers to make this happen, whether it’s investing in a few clicks or their schools/parents stepping up their personal finance education skills,” he adds.

Mr Chahwan says younger generations have a higher capacity to take on risk, but for some their appetite can be more cautious because they are investing for the first time. “Schools still do not teach personal finance and stock market investing, so a lot of the learning journey can feel daunting and intimidating,” he says.

He advises millennials to not always start with an aggressive portfolio even if they can afford to take risks. “We always advise to work your way up to your risk capacity, that way you experience volatility and get used to it. Given the higher risk capacity for the younger generations, stocks are a favourite,” says Mr Chahwan.

Highlighting the role technology has played in encouraging millennials and Gen Z to invest, he says: “They were often excluded, but with lower account minimums ... a customer with $1,000 [Dh3,672] in their account has their money working for them just as hard as the portfolio of a high get-worth individual.”

THE SIXTH SENSE

Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 5/5

In numbers

Number of Chinese tourists coming to UAE in 2017 was... 1.3m

Alibaba’s new ‘Tech Town’  in Dubai is worth... $600m

China’s investment in the MIddle East in 2016 was... $29.5bn

The world’s most valuable start-up in 2018, TikTok, is valued at... $75bn

Boost to the UAE economy of 5G connectivity will be... $269bn 

AIDA%20RETURNS
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECarol%20Mansour%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EAida%20Abboud%2C%20Carol%20Mansour%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203.5.%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Dhadak 2

Director: Shazia Iqbal

Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri 

Rating: 1/5

Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20myZoi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Syed%20Ali%2C%20Christian%20Buchholz%2C%20Shanawaz%20Rouf%2C%20Arsalan%20Siddiqui%2C%20Nabid%20Hassan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2037%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Initial%20undisclosed%20funding%20from%20SC%20Ventures%3B%20second%20round%20of%20funding%20totalling%20%2414%20million%20from%20a%20consortium%20of%20SBI%2C%20a%20Japanese%20VC%20firm%2C%20and%20SC%20Venture%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
THE LOWDOWN

Photograph

Rating: 4/5

Produced by: Poetic License Motion Pictures; RSVP Movies

Director: Ritesh Batra

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra, Farrukh Jaffar, Deepak Chauhan, Vijay Raaz

Updated: September 16, 2022, 1:06 AM