NAJRAN, 4 November 2007 — Results of DNA tests have confirmed that a four-year-old boy that was brought up by a Saudi family in Najran was swapped at birth in hospital with a Saudi baby and is the biological son of a Turkish expatriate couple, Al-Watan newspaper reported yesterday.
Two boys, Yaqub and Ali, were mistakenly switched at birth at the King Khaled Hospital in Najran after being born around the same time on Sept. 7, 2003. Each family raised the wrong child for four years.
Yusuf Jawed, 37, was confident that the child raised by the Saudi family (called Ali) was his son even before DNA results were released.
“What had really worried me was to possibly find the Saudi child we raised not to be the biological child of the Saudi family, who raised our son. That would have complicated the situation further,” he said.
Yusuf, who used to own a workshop in Najran and has since moved back to Turkey, said that as much as his wife is happy at being reunited with her biological son, she is grieving the departure of Yaqub, whom she raised and loved like her own for four years.
“She keeps crying from time to time. She’s very worried about his future, because he doesn’t know Arabic. He only speaks Turkish and she’s worried about how he’s going to cope with his family,” said Yusuf, adding that he wishes to keep in contact with the Saudi family that raised his son.
Al-Watan said DNA test results released by the Bureau of Criminal Identification would be shown to Prince Mishaal ibn Abdul Aziz, governor of the Najran province, to complete the procedure of handing over the children to their biological parents.
In a previous report, Yusuf said, “When I first saw Yaqub, I felt he wasn’t my son. There was a very serious feeling growing inside me. I contacted the hospital several times and I met a number of officials there, but they didn’t take my suspicions seriously. One of them told me to fear God and asked how I could think such a thing,” said Yusuf.
On returning to Turkey, Yusuf and his wife underwent DNA tests, which confirmed that Yaqub was not the couple’s biological child.
The couple then decided to return to Saudi Arabia to search for their real son. They lodged a complaint at the Ministry of Health, which in turn ordered another DNA test that proved that Yaqub was not their son.
The Interior Ministry together with the Health Ministry assigned a team to search for the Jawed family’s biological child in Najran. After sometime, it was found out that a boy with Turkish features was living with a Saudi family. The family was then ordered to undergo a DNA test, the results of which were recently released.
The Saudi father, who asked his name not be published, told Al-Watan previously that his family too was going through an emotional crisis.
