Maid who stabbed her sponsor’s children in Dubai jailed for life

The maid poured boiling water on three children before attacking them with a meat cleaver. It is thought the woman carried out the attack as revenge for being poorly treated by her Emirati sponsor.

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DUBAI // A maid who poured boiling water over her Emirati sponsor’s three children and then stabbed them repeatedly was sentenced to life in jail on Sunday.

Ethiopian Y B, 25, had admitted attempting to kill the children and confessed that she attempted to kill herself.

She also admitted the attempted theft of Dh640, and damaging her sponsor’s property.

“The four of them, the mother and the children, threatened to kill me,” Y B told the Dubai Criminal Court through a translator from the Ethiopian embassy.

“When I later asked them to let me go home, they refused and again threatened to kill me,” she said.

Prosecutors said that the maid admitted the attack was an act of revenge for being mistreated and deprived of food.

She said that she had planned the crime because her sponsor, L A, a 42-year-old teacher, often accused her of theft and refused to send her back home claiming that her passport was missing.

At 7am on April 11, while the mother was out of the country, Y B poured boiling water on the children – girls A A, 15, and R A, 14, and boy K A, 10 – who were sleeping.

She then stabbed them repeatedly with a meat cleaver and a knife.

The children ran from the bedroom to the living room, where A A tried to call police from the landline but found that Y B had cut the cable.

They then locked themselves in a bathroom and used a mobile phone to call police.

“We were terrified that she would be able to get us and end our lives,” said A A.

The maid then went to the mother’s room to take the money and her passport, which was hidden in a drawer.

Emirati policeman A M A, 21, said that they went to Al Warqa 2 after receiving the report of the incident and had to break down the flat’s door when no one answered.

He said the children were frightened to open the bathroom door, but did so when they knew it was police.

“They were bleeding from everywhere and badly burnt,” A M A said.

The children were rushed to Rashid Hospital and police said they found the maid sitting on the floor of the flat’s balcony with blood stains on her clothes and the weapons in her hands.

She is then alleged to have tried to slit her own throat before surrendering to police when they raised their guns. She will be deported after serving her jail term.

The sentence remains subject to appeal within 15 days.

salamir@thenational.ae