Expat falls to death in Sharjah; suicide suspected

Sharjah: A Pakistani man fell to death from the 15th floor of a building in Sharjah's Al Nahda area on Monday. The man is believed to have committed suicide.

According to witnesses, some relatives of the deceased visited him on Sunday to discuss some problems he had been facing. Investigations revealed that there was no criminal intent behind the fall.

Cases of adults and children falling from high-rises in Sharjah are not uncommon, be they accidental or intentional.

According to head of Sharjah prosecution, Anwar Al Harmodi, the fall happens when people commit suicide, when children neglected by parents fall while playing in balconies or when labourers who do not abide by safety rules and fall accidently while on duty.

Al Harmodi appealed to parents to take proper care of their children and never to leave them unattended. He stressed that the balcony doors should be shut from the inside when children are alone at home. Parents must remove any object that facilitates children to climb up to the windowsills or balcony railings.

He also urged officials at work sites to instruct workers to wear belts and safety dresses while performing their duties.

Officials are exerting tremendous efforts to introduce effective solutions to prevent such accidents, he said. "Despite our educational campaigns and publishing of tragic stories about children falling to death, some parents don't care and we still have cases of children falling from balconies."

Al Harmodi said there are cases where women and sometimes maids are sometimes locked in rooms by sponsors or human traffickers and they jump out of windows in a bid to escape.

At the same time, financial problems, losing jobs and mounting loans are reasons for suicide.