Two Emirati children died when the vehicle they were left in burst into flames in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
Toddlers Maktoum Al Hasouni, 1, and Shamayil Al Hasouni, 3, were found dead in the burnt remains of a Mercedes-Benz G-Class G-Wagen.
The car was parked outside One To Ten Gifts in Zayed Port in Abu Dhabi when it caught fire. The children's mother had left them in the car while she had gone into a shop.
A witness, who preferred not to be named, said she saw the fire start in the back of the car between 5.30pm and 6pm and, within minutes, the vehicle was ablaze.
"There were three children in the car, the eldest — a four year old boy — jumped out of the car to call his mother from inside the shop as soon as he saw the fire start," the woman, who works at a nearby cafe, told The National.
"He closed the door behind him and nobody knew there were two more children inside."
She said the mother, in her early 20s, ran out to try save her children but was unable to open the doors.
The car was completely burnt by the time Civil Defence arrived, the woman said
"Nobody could do anything, the car was completely on fire and even if we opened the door, we knew the children were already gone."
Police called the father who, after the fire had been extinguished, sat cross-legged on the floor crying, the witness said.
She said the mother was in shock and passers-by shielded her from seeing the remains of her children before she was taken to hospital.
"The surviving son was inside the ambulance. He did not see either and, when he asked where his sibling were, we told him they were taken to the doctor for an injection. But he didn’t believe us. He told us ‘I know they were inside the car and they got burnt. Now who will I play with?’"
Police and Civil Defence cleared the scene at 10.30pm, the witness said.
"I left very sad I could not sleep all night, and I just rushed to my son and held him tight.”
Brig Gen Mohammad Al Rashidi, director of criminal security for Abu Dhabi Police, said the cause of the fire and the deaths of the children were under investigation.
He urged parents not to leave young children unattended in vehicles.
The Al Hasouni children were buried at Bani Yas Cemetery after dhuhr payers [12pm] on Wednesday.
The country has seen a series of accidents involving parental negligence, in which children have had to be rescued from overheated cars, have drowned in swimming pools and died in house fires.
Judicial officials previously said parents found to have caused their child's death will be held to account.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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