The six-year-old child murdered by her family's Ethiopian domestic worker was buried in Hotat Bani Tamim, 150 km from Riyadh, in a tearful ceremony on Tuesday evening.
Lamees' father, Mohammad Al-Salman, paid homage to her on Twitter with messages and pictures. His tweets were re-tweeted by hundreds of other users. Many hashtags were created to discuss the growing number of child murders at the hands of domestic workers in the Kingdom.
“This is my Lamees. I was overjoyed when she was born, carrying her around. Today, I carry her to her grave. I had never anticipated this moment. I was thinking of her as a bride,” he posted on his account.
One of the active hashtags called for the deportation of all Ethiopian domestic workers. Al-Salman also participated in the discussion and urged people not to make generalizations about Ethiopians.
Interviewed yesterday on the Yahala Show on Al-Khalijia TV, he said the maid came to work at his house nine months ago. A few days after her arrival she told him that she did not want to work. He said he would send her back, but she came to him the next day to apologize and asked to keep her job.
Social media and microblogging users expressed support, but several users said that they blamed parents for leaving their children with “total strangers.”
“Unfortunately, innocent children are made to pay for the anger, hatred and other pent-up feelings (of others),” one blogger remarked.
Police found Lamees in a pool of blood with her throat slit, most likely with the knife found next to her body.
They eventually found the helper hiding in a store behind the house holding a cleaver, seemingly to defend herself. She reportedly confessed she had killed the child.
According to a local report, the woman said that she could no longer bear the alleged ill-treatment she was receiving from the family and that she killed their daughter to exact revenge.
Girl murdered by maid gets tearful sendoff
