Wednesday, July 09, 2025
57.0°F

Report: Stowaway's mom says son believed her dead

The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 2 months AGO
by The Associated Press
| April 25, 2014 9:00 PM

 SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The mother of a California teenager who stowed away on a flight to Hawaii told Voice of America that her son had recently learned that she was alive after being told by his father she had died.

Speaking with VOA from a refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia, mother Ubah Mohamed Abdullahi said she felt bad that her son risked his life and that her dream is to live with her children in the United States.

“”I cried, felt badly and many people in the refugee camp came to me to give me support,” she said.

FBI agents say surveillance video shows the 15-year-old jumping out of the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines jet on a Maui tarmac Sunday after surviving a cross-Pacific flight from San Jose, California. He told authorities he had argued with his father before leaving his house.

The 5 1/2-hour flight over the Pacific would have exposed him to sub-zero temperatures and very low temperatures, likely knocking him out for the duration. He has been hospitalized ever since.

The boy’s parents are divorced, and he lives with his father, Abdilahi Yusuf Abdi, a cab driver in Santa Clara, California.

Abdullahi said her ex-husband took their three children to California without her knowledge, and that she hadn’t heard from them since 2006.

“I know he was looking for me, and I am requesting the U.S. government to help me reunite with my kids,” she told VOA.

MORE IMPORTED STORIES

Pilot on tape talks of teen stowaway
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 11 years, 1 month ago
Border authorities use pandemic powers to expel immigrants
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 4 years, 12 months ago
Stowaway sneaks on to plane after three tries
Daily Inter-Lake | Updated 10 years, 11 months ago

ARTICLES BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 9, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland

WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

September 8, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland

WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

September 8, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: Top Republican says Taliban holding Americans

WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says some Americans who have been trying to get out of Afghanistan since the U.S. military left are sitting in airplanes at an airport ready to leave but the Taliban are not letting them take off.