RIYADH: A large number of Sri Lankan expatriates gathered on their embassy’s premises on Friday to mourn the death of Ambassador Abdul Ageed Mohamed Marleen.
Marleen, 73, was found dead on Tuesday in his hotel room in the Yemeni capital Sanaa where he was attending a regional conference. His body was flown to Colombo where he was buried on Friday. Yemeni authorities said Marleen died in his sleep of natural causes.
The meeting in Riyadh was organized by the Sri Lankan Expatriates Society (SLES) in association with the embassy. People belonging to all ethnic groups were present to pray for a man who had rendered a range of services to the community during his short stay in the Kingdom.
In a speech on the occasion, Sabarullah Khan, charge d’affaires at the mission, said during a span of 15 months, Marleen had done a great deal to improve the image of Sri Lanka in this part of the world. “His scholarly approach, humility and pleasant manners made him successful as a diplomat,” Khan said, describing the death as an irreparable loss for Sri Lanka.
SLES President Nirone Dissanayake said Marleen saw himself as a father-figure who proudly claimed that his mission in the Kingdom was to look after 550,000 children. Khan appealed to the staff to cooperate with him in continuing the former ambassador’s good work for the greater good of the country.
At a similar meeting in Jeddah yesterday, Sri Lanka Consul General Abdul Latiff Mohamed Lafeer said it was Marleen who took the initiative of translating the Holy Qur’an into Sinhalese, the official language of the country. “He was a noble gentleman who spent the better part of his life working for the sake of Sri Lankans living in and out of the country,” he noted.
Among his projects to promote Sri Lanka’s image in the Kingdom was the launch by the embassy in June last year of “Insight,” a highly informative and colorful monthly. A month ago, he founded the Sri Lanka-Saudi Arabia Friendship Society in Riyadh to build bridges between the peoples of the two countries.
He gave a new look to the embassy premises. The outside of the mission was beautifully landscaped with the help of Lankan philanthropists and he refurbished the sitting area for visitors with facilities for making a typical cup of Sri Lankan tea. He also installed a wide screen television to highlight Sri Lanka’s tourist destinations in a documentary entitled “Faces and Places.”
