JEDDAH, 11 May 2006 — A six-year-old boy was allegedly branded on the buttocks by his stepmother in Tabuk. The mother of Abdul Razak Al-Sakhairy complained to police in Jizan, where she lives, that the wife of her ex-husband branded her son with a red-hot steel spoon, according to Al-Jazirah newspaper.
“Nadia (the stepmother) pressed burned my back with a hot spoon in the kitchen. I don’t want to stay anymore with Baba and Nadia,” the boy was quoted as saying.
Abdul Razak’s father, a police officer, divorced his mother a year ago and took away the children, two sons and a daughter, to Tabuk where he is currently staying with his new wife. A week ago the boy was sent back to the mother in Jizan with wounds caused by a hot instrument. The father sent the sick boy on the long journey alone. The boy was unable to sit because of the burns on his buttocks and other parts of body.
The mother took him to hospital for treatment. “When I called him (ex-husband) up and asked why his wife torture my children, he replied in a very rude manner as though he was above the law,” the mother said.
She added that she appealed to the authorities to take immediate steps to return her other two children because she was afraid that they would be tortured at their father’s house.
In another incident, police in Riyadh are investigating the circumstances in which a nine-year-old boy was admitted to Al-Hammadi Hospital. The boy’s mother took him to hospital on Monday with marks of physical abuse, including extracted toe-nails.
According to eyewitnesses the boy was brutally abused by a relative. It is also said that the boy was never sent to school. Police are investigating the case, Al-Jazirah reported.
