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Jaiffer will never come home
In a little corner of Pilimatalawa, a family grieves for a son and brother killed in Jeddah
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
There are no more tears. Sheer exhaustion and fatigue have taken their toll and left the eyes dry. But the searing sobs and sighs that wrack the body from time to time reveal an anguish that cannot be verbalized.

For a mother and a father living in Handessa off Pilimatalawa, the worst nightmare has come true - their son is dead. Exacerbating the agony is the devastating knowledge that it was a violent death.

"The phone call came around 6 in the evening that he was dead. Api asarana wuna," sobs Waidyaratne Mudiyanselage Muhammed Fahurdeen. It was Monday, December 6, 2004. The call was from the Sri Lankan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, breaking the worst possible news to a family that their son and brother had been killed in a terrorist attack in Jeddah.

W.M. Muhammed Jauffer Sadiq, just 23 years old, a security guard at the US Consulate in Jeddah had died of gunshot injuries. When The Sunday Times visited the bereaved family in their ancestral village of Walaramba in Handessa on Wednesday, men, women and children were still in shock. Knots of women, talking in whispers, line the narrow pathway to Jauffer's home lying in a cluster of small houses.

The hallway is full of men and boys, all relatives, seated around Jauffer's father Fahurdeen, while his mother is in a room wringing her hands in despair. "We have sent a fax asking them to bury Jauffer in Jeddah as we have been informed that it will take at least seven to 10 days for his body to be brought back here," laments Fahurdeen.

Adds Jauffer's elder brother, Muhammed Fayiz, "The moment we heard of the attack on the news we tried to contact him on his cell phone, but there was no answer." In a panic, he and another brother who were working in Kuwait, contacted Jauffer's room mate, hoping against hope that Jauffer would be unharmed. But it was not to be and Fayiz immediately took a flight back home to be with the family while his brother left for Jeddah to see to the arrangements.

In the Fahurdeen home, pride of place has been given to a few photographs of Jauffer, while his youngest brother, Ashik clutches a tiny snap of Jauffer as a boy. "Jauffer was a friend to each and every person in the village. The moment we heard the news of his death, people rushed into our home and stripped our two albums of his photos," says Fahurdeen.

If dealing with memories of Jauffer is not easy for his family, it is more difficult for them to turn them into words. But gradually tales of his childhood and the time before he left for Saudi Arabia flow out. Jauffer has many siblings, six in all. His father was in the village mosque until five years ago but ill-health compelled him to give up his duties.

The family has since been dependent on the three sons who took wing to the Middle East. Jauffer, an employee of Othman H. Al Gamdhi & Sons, a security firm in Jeddah, had been sending money from the time he left for Saudi Arabia in 2002.

"He had to go abroad because he could not find a job here. We built up this house with the money he sent. We only had a hut before. Whenever we expressed a wish, wanting something, he would send it through a friend who was coming back home," says Fahurdeen.

Jauffer's 11-year-old brother yearned for a bicycle and that came about a year ago. From the disjointed tales family and friends keep recalling, Jauffer emerges as a fun-loving but serious youth who was very dependable. Be it a relative's wedding or funeral Jauffer was always there, extending a helping hand. In the village school too, he was liked and admired by both the children and the teachers. His pet sport was football.

"He was the joker in the family. He would rib his mother often. He'd go into the kitchen and grab some food off a pan on the fire," says Fahurdeen, while Ramzan Bebe, Jauffer's mother, weeps uncontrollably. "If there was food in the house he would eat it. If there wasn't he would go to bed without food," says Ramzan.

Soon after he went, the letters and the photos of him in Jeddah came frequently. But in the past few months he had been speaking to his family often on the phone. "He used to call us during nombi almost everyday, talking to everyone," says Fahurdeen, adding that he jokingly asked him whether he was wasting money on phone calls because he had too much money. "He told me that he was worried that his mother would oversleep during nombi and the family would not have their early morning meal before the fast began."

Asks Fahurdeen, "Did you know that he was due to come back in January?" Yes, Jauffer was due to come home after his stint overseas not only laden with gifts but also with the promise of having a grand wedding for his younger sister who is still unmarried.

Shattered hopes and dreams and a son and brother lost forever. For this grief-stricken family dealt a cruel blow by an unexpected hand there will not even be the solace of seeing their beloved Jauffer's face one last time before bidding him a final goodbye.

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