Doctors are treating a Sri Lankan maid who had more than 20 nails hammered into her body in a grisly act of torture allegedly perpetrated by her employer in Saudi Arabia, Sri Lankan Embassy sources told Arab News.

The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment has launched an investigation after doctors who are treating the woman at the Kamburipitya Base Hospital in the Matara district of Sri Lanka also reported the nails had been heated up before being drilled into her skin.

The maid, identified as 50-year-old Ariyawathie, returned to Sri Lanka from Saudi Arabia, where she had been trying to escape on her own expense, for treatment after the incident occurred.

“I had to work continuously since I had to do the chores of all the occupants. And when I wanted to take rest due to tiredness, they inserted the nail in my body as a punishment,” Arab News quoted Ariyawathie. “I had to work from dawn to dusk. I hardly slept. They beat me and threatened to kill me and hide my body. They were really devils with no mercy at all."

Dr. H.K.K. Satharasinghe of Kamburupitiya hospital told the Associated Press that X-rays show Ariyawathi has 24 nails and needles in her body, ranging in size from 1-2 inches.

Ariyawathie traveled to Saudi Arabia for work on March 25 after being registered at the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

“We have received this complaint from the Foreign Ministry in Colombo, who said the maid has been allegedly tortured by her sponsor,” a senior diplomat from the Sri Lankan mission in Riyadh told Arab News. “We are looking for the sponsor. We were able to track down the Saudi recruitment agent in Riyadh and we will summon the sponsor to discuss this issue."

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