Schoolchild stranded in private van dies

The kindergartener, Fida Haris, started attending the school only two months ago. Authorities allege the driver forgot to ensure she came off the 15-seater van when he dropped off other children at the school in the morning. Ostensibly the child dozed off and remained inside the van, which had tinted windows.

On a day when mercury reached 47 degrees Celsius, school officials said Fida apparently suffocated inside the vehicle. “Her body had turned pale because of lack of oxygen and the intensity of the heat,” said her class teacher Gita Radhakrishnan. “It was a horrible sight.”

As was the routine, the driver of the passenger van picked up the child along with her elder sister and a dozen other children from their homes in downtown Dammam between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. He then dropped some of the children off at the school’s girls section and brought the boys and kindergarten children to the school’s main building.

It was here that he forgot to take Fida off. All the other children got off and went to their classes. The driver assumed Fida also went to her UKG-A class.

Private van drivers park their vehicles near the Indian school and travel back together to Dammam or Alkhobar returning later at home time. Fida was left in a parked van near Gate No. 4 in the full glare of the sun. The Indian school is located in a sparsely populated area of Al-Raka district. The building has multiple entrances, but once the children arrive only the main gate remains open. If a child cried for help in a van near the side gates, there is little chance of anybody noticing.

“Yes, a five-year-old is capable of knocking on the van doors. She must have done that but there was nobody to listen to her cries nor was there anybody to notice the struggle for life inside the van,” explained Fida’s class teacher.

The driver, who has been identified as Naushad from the Indian state of Kerala, returned with the other drivers at 12 p.m. to pick up the kindergarten children. He realized what had happened only when he unlocked the van’s doors. He panicked and called one of his driver friends, Satish, and explained what had happened. Naushad, then, ran away.

Satish found the lifeless child in her red-and-white uniform and called in the senior teacher. She immediately identified her as Fida. “It came as a shock to me. In the class register she was listed as absent today,” said Radhakrishnan.

Satish took Fida to the school’s first aid room. She was later transported to the nearby Astoon Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. Hospital staff notified police of her death and criminal negligence charges were filed against the driver who later surrendered himself to Dhahran police in the evening.

Fida’s grief-stricken parents, Muhammad and Sajana Haris, also from Kerala, were consoled by school officials, teachers and members of the local Indian community.

As news of the youngster’s death spread throughout the school and among the Indian community, there were highly emotional scenes with children and teachers bursting into tears.

IISD Principal E.K. Mohammed Shaffe said there were no words to describe the tragedy. “It is beyond shocking. The little one died just next to where we work day in and day out,” he said.

There are 16,000 boys and girls enrolled at the Indian school in Dammam. Boys and girls sections are separately located in the Al-Raka district. Since the main building is unable to house all students, the school’s management has secured nearby villas to house classrooms.

The school’s transportation system is overburdened and there are only 70 coaches to ferry students. These coaches, which belong to the Saudi Public Transport Co. (SAPTCO), are considered safe. However, they accommodate only 3,000 of the school’s 16,000 students. The rest come and leave school via private passenger vans. The school has absolutely no control over them.

According to one estimate, there are more than 3,000 private van operators transporting children to school in Dammam on a daily basis. Not all parents are happy to send their children to school in private vans but have no other options. Even in areas where the school’s SAPTCO coaches operate, children usually have to be shuttled to the nearest stop, something that encourages many parents to opt for private vans, which pick up children from their doorsteps.

Indian community elders have called for a thorough revamp of the school’s transportation system and the way that private vans operate.

“They are not accountable to anybody. They are arrogant and parents are at the mercy of their whims. They don’t have proper air conditioners; the drivers drive madly on the highway. Parents refuse to speak against them because then there will be nobody to ferry their children to school. They are a mafia and they need to be held accountable,” said Muhammad Shadab, whose children regularly complain of irresponsible van operators.

School Chairman John Thomas said everything that needs to be done will be done. “This is so tragic. We lost an innocent life,” he said.

For parents with children at the school, the tragedy is far too close to home.

“The first thing I did after hearing the news was to hold my four-year-old daughter tightly and cry out loud. In my mind’s eye I was trying to imagine the situation little Fida was in. Poor girl -- she must have tried so hard to escape that situation. There was nobody to listen to her. What a painful death it must have been,” said Sameena Sajid, whose two daughters are enrolled at the same school. “My children refused to say anything or eat anything after they came back from school. They are in shock.”