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By Asmae Bahadi
Rabat – After a solid 26 years of separation, Bandar Al-Mutairi from Kuwait finally managed to hug his son, Maher, and hold him in his arms as he turned the page of the disunion caused by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The beginning of the story dates back to 1990. Al-Mutairi said that “his son left with his Iraqi mother to Basra city.”
Al-Mutairi added, “Maher used to live with his mother, whom he divorced in Kuwait at that time, and when the invasion happened, the mother carried her child to Basra (an Iraqi city), and nothing was heard from them afterwards.”
Flooded with joy from meeting his son after all these years, Al-Mutairi highlighted the fact that after the liberation of Kuwait, he registered his son with the Red Crescent, amongst other missing Kuwaitis. He continued to search for him personally through people he knew from the area that his ex-wife came from, but failed to find a trace of his son.
According to his statements, Al-Mutairi refused to give up on finding his son and held on tightly to a thin thread of hope for the return of his son who had to leave his baby behind. About two years ago, he received a call affirming that his son lived with his maternal uncles, and he was willing to return to Kuwait to live with his father.
He emphasized, “The call that was made by one of Maher’s uncles was the beginning of his returning trip. I began to communicate with the committees of the missing and Red Crescent of Kuwait and the Kuwaiti Embassy in Iraq, who helped me and made strenuous efforts to help in my son’s trip back to Kuwait, which he entered two days before through Abdali port (north).”
