AL AIN // A father and his 10-year-old son and five-year-old daughter died in a head-on car crash in Al Ain yesterday.
Another son aged 7 is in critical condition in hospital with a skull fracture. The children's mother and two other sons aged 15 and 19 were also injured.
The little girl who died was not in a child car seat and no one in the vehicle appeared to have been wearing a seatbelt, an emergency-room doctor said. "The injuries are consistent with those an unrestrained person suffers in a collision."
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The children's uncle, Abdullah al Shamsi, said their mother was under sedation last night and did not know her husband, son and daughter were dead.
He identified the victims as Khalfan al Shamsi, his son Mohammed and daughter Mira, who was supposed to start preschool yesterday.
"It was a complete shock to us all," Mr al Shamsi said. "We drove here from Oman and Abu Dhabi right away to be at my sister's side. We are extremely saddened. The whole family is in mourning.
"It's hard to believe that they woke up today to take the kids to school and now my brother-in-law, my niece and my nephew are dead."
The crash happened between 7am and 8am on Zayed bin Sultan Street near Bawadi Mall. A Honda Civic jumped the central reservation and slammed head-on into the family’s SUV, causing it to flip over, a police investigator said.
The driver of the Civic suffered minor cuts to his face. He told police he had lost control after being been cut off by another driver. The Civic driver is in police custody.
Khalfan al Shamsi and Mohammed were pronounced dead at the scene. Mira was rushed to Tawam Hospital, but doctors were unable to save her.
Mrs al Shamsi and the two older boys were treated at Al Ain Hospital. The seven-year-old is in the intensive-care unit of Tawam Hospital.
“This was a sad morning for us all,” said the emergency-room doctor, a member of the medical team who treated Mira. “We haven’t had a day this difficult in a long time.”
Seatbelts and child restraints play a critical role in saving lives, John Hughes, the regional manager for ARRB Group, the road-safety research and consulting organisation, said yesterday.
“They are both mandatory and extremely effective. It is essential to use these precautions all the time.”
However, Mr Hughes said, such safety measures are not used enough in the UAE.
Figures from the Middle East Road Safety conference in January showed that 98 per cent of toddlers in the UAE are not properly restrained in car seats.
“You can see children readily standing up in cars, bouncing around, climbing from the back to the front seats, and even sitting on the parent’s lap holding the steering wheel,” he said.
Besides all the obvious risks, even the airbag poses a threat to children sitting in the front seat of a vehicle, he said. “Anyone who is not wearing a seatbelt is waiting for an accident to happen.”
Dr Abdulilah Zineddin, a highway and road safety expert in Abu Dhabi, said parents needed to educate their children about the importance of using seatbelts.
“It goes without saying, seatbelts save lives,” he said. “Studies show that seatbelts increase the chances of survival and reduce the impact of accidents. Parents need to take this more seriously.”
Brig Gen Mohammed al Minhali, commander of the Traffic Police Department, expressed his sorrow at the tragic loss of life, and said his department was striving to educate the public about safe driving.
The accident remains under investigation.
ealghalib@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Manal Ismail
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Details
Through Her Lens: The stories behind the photography of Eva Sereny
Forewords by Jacqueline Bisset and Charlotte Rampling, ACC Art Books
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
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.
Various Artists
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Ahmed Saadawi
Penguin Press
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
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How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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