The Somali mother of the teen stowaway who survived a flight from California to Hawaii in the plane's wheel well said in a radio interview from a refugee camp in Ethiopia that she had not been able to speak to her son for years before his risky adventure, according to the Associated Press.
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, the AP reported.
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, according to the AP.
""I cried, felt badly and many people in the refugee camp came to me to give me support," she said, the AP reported.
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, according to the AP. 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 AP reported.
The boy's parents are divorced, and he lives with his father, Abdilahi Yusuf Abdi, a cab driver in Santa Clara, California, according to the AP. 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, the AP reported.
