Dear Uncle, Help me Find my Mother

Mohammed Ahmed Mansour Al-Sanafi was brought up in a family who he  considered to be his, and a mother he thought was his. However, this did not  last for long because he came later to know that his real mother was in Europe.

Mohammed is a public servant and plays for a famous football club in the capital Sana'a, and he has traveled to several Arab and foreign countries.

Until very recently has Mohammed come to know that the one he used to call as mother is not his real mother, but rather his step-mother, and this only became known to him upon his father's death on March 7, 2001.

"My father used to work in a UN organization where he met my mother and married her secretly because he did not want to anger his first wife," said Al-Sanafi.

Mohammed Al-Sanafi, 18, pointed out that he does not know his real mother who was sent to work for the same UN organization in Europe according to her elder brother; however, he did not specify the place in which she is living now. "Upon my mother's travel to Europe, my father brought me to live in my step-mother's house because he knew I could not live alone. I used to think of her as my real mother and she used to treat me nicely, perhaps, under the pressure of my late father," hinted Al-Sanafi.

Upon his father's death, Mohammed's life changed and he was just 12 years old when his step-mother started to send him out of the house and instigated his brothers, neighbors and relatives against him, calling him the son of a  prostitute.

His step mother used to throw his clothes to streets and put filthy things into his room. She further tells people that he is not Al-Sanafi's legitimate son in effort to deprive him from his fathers inheritance. What is more is that she does not allow him to enter the house until 9 p.m. and he cannot eat or drink at home and is forced to wash his own clothes outside the house.

His step-mother also issued a court ruling that confine the heirs of Ahmed Al-Sanafi, the father, to his sons from her: Saleem, Hanan, Qais, Hameeda, Ahmed, Mutahar, Yasser despite the fact that she knows that he is their brother according to his father's oral will.

Prior to his death, his father included him in the family card and he also issued him a passport and all these indicate he is his father. 

Mohammed added that his father’s close friend told him that he knows my maternal uncle  (mothers brother)who used to contact my father through Internet, hinting his name is Abdul Rabb Sallmat Tasfai Hili aged 25 and he is Somali by nationality. Mohammed frequently calls his uncle, however, his uncle never allows him to talk to his mother, claiming that she wants nothing to do with anything related to him, even though she is willing to support him financially. Over the last 15 years, she sent him thousands of dollars, but not showing him the love he needed most, especially in such a young age, and after the death of his father.

Mohammed fears that his uncle is not telling the truth and does not understand why his mother would ever try to avoid him. “She’s my mother, why would she not want to see me. It is not clear to me nor anyone who knows my pains,” says Mohammed.