The five-year-old boy was said to have been found by a woman near Reef Mall on September 6. Image Credit: Dubai Police

Also in this package Dubai Police solves mystery: Mother of abandoned boy identified

Dubai: Police confirmed on Thursday that they have arrested four women in connection with the abandonment of a five-year-old boy, including the woman who said she had found him wandering outside a mall.

The boy was said to have been found by a woman near Reef Mall on September 6, however police now say this was a cover story and the woman knew him all along.

Brigadier Ali Ghanem, director of Muraqabbat police station, where the boy was taken by the woman, explained that the boy’s biological mother had abandoned him and returned to her home country just two days after giving birth to him back in 2014.

The boy was then handed over to a friend of the mother in Sharjah, who raised him for five years. Ghanem said that the friend of the mother didn’t have an address or contact number for the mother but raised the child as her own in the hope that the real mother would return to the UAE.

She fabricated the story that she found him. We conducted a DNA test of all four women and found that none of them was the biological mother of the boy. They were arrested and referred to Dubai Public Prosecution for legal action. - Brigadier Ali Ghanem | Director, Muraqabbat Police Station

“After raising the child for five years, the woman was unable to handle the boy or keep him because the child reached school going age,” said Ghanem.

Her friend advised her to give the boy to another woman in the Al Mutaina area of Dubai, explained Ghanem. This woman kept the boy for some time until another friend told her to hand him over to Al Muraqabbat police station claiming that she had found him near Reef Mall.

“She fabricated the story that she found him. We conducted a DNA test of four women and found that none of them was the biological mother of the boy. They were arrested and referred to Dubai Public Prosecution for legal action,” said Ghanem.

All four women are now in custody apart from the biological mother who is still at large. There is no information from police on who the father is.

The boy was taken to hospital for medical checks but was found to be in good health. He later spent a few nights at Muraqabbat police station before he was taken to the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children, where he is currently in care until it can be established who and where his real mother and father is.

“Soon after we called people to help identify the boy, we received a phone call that the boy was seen with an Asian woman in Sharjah,” said Ghanem.

This tip off enabled police to pursue the woman in Sharjah, who it later emerged was a friend of the mother who had looked after him for five years. “She admitted that his biological mother delivered him and left after two days to return to her home country. The mother promised her friend to come back quickly but she didn’t return,” said Ghanem.

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