Abu Dhabi: Binoy Mundakkal was eagerly waiting for his wife and newborn baby to join him in Bahrain where he works as an accountant.
“He had visited them in India six months ago and was very happy,” Gokul Surendran, a family member, told Gulf News on Tuesday.
The mother and child flew to Bahrain on Monday morning to start a new life with Binoy but that journey was interrupted mid-way. As Gulf News reported on Tuesday, Binoy’s 11-month-old child, Rishi Priya, died aboard a Gulf Air flight from Kochi to Manama.
It was a traumatic experience for the mother, Aswani Binoy. She had been living with her husband in Bahrain since the couple married in 2012 and went to her hometown, Thrissur in the south Indian state of Kerala, for the delivery, said Surendran, who is her first cousin.
The family was very happy since Priya was born, he said.
He said the family members back home had taken the child for a medical check-up before the journey as she was suffering from mild fever. And the doctor had said she was fit to fly.
“But no one imagined that the journey would end in such a tragedy,” Surendran said.
Ratheesh Kumar, a relative, said the couple had a tough time on Tuesday.
“Binoy flew from Bahrain and reached Abu Dhabi by late evening on Monday. Aswani has not overcome the trauma she experienced mid-air. Her husband had to visit government offices in Abu Dhabi to complete the paperwork for the child’s repatriation,” he said.
Thanks to the help extended by many people, the paperwork was completed and the body was embalmed at the Shaikh Khalifa Medical City morgue by Tuesday afternoon, he said. Relatives and friends in the UAE paid their last respects at the morgue.
The body was flown to Kerala on a Gulf Air flight by Tuesday evening, accompanied by the father and mother. The last rites will be performed on Wednesday in the family’s hometown.
As Gulf News reported on Tuesday, an emergency landing of the flight at Abu Dhabi Airport did not help save the child as her body temperature rose and she started shivering.
“The flight was given priority in the landing queue. The airport medical team was waiting at the gate. Unfortunately, the infant died,” Ahmad Al Haddabi, Chief Operations Officer at Abu Dhabi Airports, told Gulf News on Monday
Al Haddabi added that the infant’s mother was assisted with a temporary visa and then taken to a relative’s residence in Abu Dhabi.
