DUBAI // A fight between two absconding maids over insults led to a stabbing, a court heard this morning.
The Dubai Court of Misdemeanours was told that 25-year-old Ethiopian MK ran away from her Emirati sponsor's house shortly after she arrived to the UAE last year in pursuit of hourly work.
Records show that MK found a room in a house rented by families in the Hamdan area. Four other runaway maids were staying in the same room with her, records show.
On the morning of June 7, MK said, she was smoking shisha in the room after a Sudanese man visited one of her roommates, RJ, 26, Eritrean.
Records show that RJ and her visitor started drinking alcohol and RJ became drunk. MK said she came to the room and banged on the door until RJ opened it. At that point, MK told prosecutors, RJ grabbed her hair and called her inappropriate names.
"I spotted a small kitchen knife on the floor, so I picked it up and stabbed her," MK said.
Prosecutors say MK fled the house along with three other women there. RJ managed to climb down the stairs and went to the door, where a security guard found her and called police.
MB, the Pakistani security guard, testified that he heard screams and found RJ bleeding on the floor. Two stab wounds were treated at Rashid Hospital, then RJ was referred to court, where she was fined Dh1,000 for consuming alcohol and deported for absconding.
MK, who threw away the knife few blocks from the house, was arrested on June 15. She confessed this morning and will appear again on August 2.
salamir@thenational.ae
