Social media helps find Malaysian woman’s long-lost father in Singapore

Singapore—A woman from Malaysia took to social media recently in the hopes of being reunited with her father, whom she last saw nearly two decades ago. There is no record of her father leaving Singapore and his last job was at Beach Road.

In a short amount of time, her elderly father has been found.

Khazimah Ali posted the only photo of her father, Ali Jais, that she had in her possession on the Malaysia-Singapore Border Crossers Facebook page looking for leads concerning his whereabouts.

Mr Ali Jais, a Malaysian national from Kuala Selangor, was born in 1936, which means he turned 84 this year. Ms Khazimah, his youngest daughter, is 37 and now a mother of four.

On Nov 15, Bernama carried the story of Ms Khazimah’s search for her father and by Nov 16, Mr Ali Jais had been found.

In a report in Bernama today, Ms Khazimah’s family is quoted as saying, “We found Abah!”

Her father now resides at the Bukit Batok Home for the Aged.

Ms Khazimah’s oldest sister Ms Hasliza, told Bernama, “Alhamdulillah Abah is in good health. I was informed that Abah remembers all our names. When he was asked the children’s names, he remembered all of them.”

The nursing home was able to identify Mr Ali Jais’ identity via a copy of his ID that Ms Hasliza had.

“According to the home, Abah remembers us … it is just that he did not know how to contact us,” she added.

Ms Khazimah received a message via WhatsApp concerning their father. “Someone informed me early this afternoon (Nov 16) via WhatsApp about Abah’s presence. I informed my eldest sister who immediately contacted the care centre.”

She told Bernama that she hoped to celebrate Aidilfitri for the first time with their father in 2021.

Ms Khazimah had told Bernama that her parents had been separated, adding that in her whole life she had only met with him less than 10 times. The last time she saw him was in Kuala Lumpur around 2001.

She said that there had been efforts to trace her father’s whereabouts, such as checking with the Malaysian Immigration Department records some years ago.

“According to the last record, Abah (father) has not left Singapore for a long time. In the last meeting, I had a chance to look at Abah’s passport and saw that there was a lot of history of him travelling to and from Singapore.”

As far as she knows, his last employment in Singapore was at the Cheney Building on Beach Road.

Ms Khazimah, along with her other sisters, Hasliza and Haslina, as well as their half-brother Zuber Zainal Abidin, told Bernama they believed that he was in a care home for the elderly.

She expressed that she missed him and wanted to reconnect with him because she wanted him to know about his seven grandchildren. —/TISG