DUBAI // Two maids fled their sponsor's villa after locking up two children in a room without any food or water, a Dubai court was told.
The two Ethiopians waited for their sponsor's wife, MA, 35, an Emirati, to leave for work in the morning before locking her sons, 3 and 4, in their room.
SS, 26, and ZS, 27, took a gold jewellery set from MA's bedroom worth nearly Dh9,000, MA said.
SS denied charges of endangering the lives of the two children and theft. The Court of Misdemeanours fined SS Dh1,000. ZS remains at large.
At 7.30 am on June 1, MA left her villa in Al Warqaa 4 to go to work.
She said she called her maids several times but their mobile phones were turned off, prompting her to become worried.
MA returned to her home at 4pm and found the doors to her villa unlocked and her children locked up in their room.
She called Al Rashidiya police station.
SS was arrested in coordination with Sharjah Police in the Al Qasimiya area on June 16.
"I did not lock the kids without food. I fed them and kept milk with them before I left them crying," SS said in records.
She added that she had been suffering from MA's ill treatment for months, which forced her to run away.
"She wouldn't take me to a doctor even when I was sick," she said.
She added that she had worked for MA for five months and claimed that she and ZS had suffered a lot during that period.
SS said ZS left her when they got to Sharjah, where she stayed with a friend.
