Saudi authorities facilitated the repatriation of an Indian mother of six with her children.

There are several cases of expatriate women who entered the Kingdom on legal dependent visas to join their husbands, but became illegal residents when they could not renew their iqamas.

One such person is Kanees Zainab from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in India.

Zainab struggled hard for a year to obtain travel documents and exit processes for her children to return home. She finally succeeded and left the Kingdom on Sunday evening with the hope that she would be able to start a new life in her home town.

Zainab joined her husband Ahmed Ali Khan in the port city of Dammam 11 years ago with her two-month-old son, Shabbir Ali Khan, who is now 11 years old. Her daughter was born a year later. Both these children had passports and iqamas, which later expired.

Her husband, Ahmed Ali Khan, used to work independently and didn’t stay anywhere for long periods. He lost his job and the sponsor didn’t renew his iqama. Khan continued living with his family with the support of his father who was working in Dhahran at the time.

Zainab later gave birth to a baby girl, Farwa Begum, who is now nine years old, but she has no birth certificate from the hospital because of nonpayment of bills, according to the family.

She then gave birth to two more children, now seven and eight, at a hospital in Qatif in Eastern Province.

These two children were born after the expiry of their father’s iqama, making the entire family illegal residents in the Kingdom.

Over some family dispute, Ahmed Ali Khan deserted his family, including his parents, children and his pregnant wife, about two years ago, his mother Sajida Begum said.

During the grace period, Zainab gave birth to her sixth baby. None of the children received any formal education due to lack of legal status.

They could not leave for India either.

Zainab, along with her mother-in-law, Sajida Begum, tried tirelessly to obtain travel documents for the children over the past few months. She met social worker Naaz Shoukat Vakka at the deportation center in Dammam, who helped the family.

She said that circumstances had forced her and children to become illegal residents. She thanked Indian diplomat Sibi George and Naaz Shoukat Vakkam, who supported the family in their hour of need.