DUBAI // A maid has been accused of stabbing three children in her care after her employer refused to let her travel home.
The Emirati children, girls aged 16 and 14 and a boy aged 12, managed to lock themselves in a bathroom at their home in Al Warqa, and one of them called the police.
Police say the maid, from Ethiopia, tried to commit suicide after the attack.
The maid, who worked for the family for 18 months, is thought to have attacked the children after their parents asked her to postpone her trip home until the children had finished school for the summer, and delayed paying her wages.
The maid told police she was not aware of her actions until she had begun stabbing the elder girl, who was asleep in the same room as her sister.
She then went to their brother’s bedroom and attacked him. Two of the children are thought to have been seriously injured.
The maid has been charged with attempted murder and attempted suicide.
The case has been referred to public prosecution.
dmoukhallati@thenational.ae
