Yaqoub, the Saudi child involved in a Najran maternity hospital mix-up six years ago which led to him being brought up by a Turkish family, has found himself unable to communicate with his Arabic-speaking classmates in his first days back at elementary school. Yaqoub was one of two boys discovered four years after their birth at the same time and in the same ward to have been mistakenly given to the wrong parents, leading to a complex case where the pair were swapped back to their genetic parents from the families that had reared them as their own – and in their own languages. Now Yaqoub's father, who says his son still struggles to pronounce his own full name in Arabic and has been subject to teasing on the part of his classmates, is holding the Ministry of Health “partially responsible” for failing in its promise to help his son learn Arabic. The Director of Boys' Education in Najran, Ali Al-Shamrani, has instructed the private school at which Yaqoub has been registered free of charge, to set up a special language program for him. “Everyone involved in Yaqoub's education will be treating him as a special case,” Al-Shamrani said. Yaqoub's father expressed his intention two years ago to pursue a compensation claim of SR50 million against the Ministry of Health, while the family lawyer recently said the investigating judge had postponed the hearing for a fourth time at the ministry's request until documents were presented proving medical rather than clerical error.
