Manama: Police in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea resort of Jeddah were stunned when a woman walked into their station to confess to the murder of her baby 40 years ago.

The woman, aged in her 50s, said that she wanted to make amends with her past and “cleanse” herself of the murder of the baby who was less than one year old after concealing the facts for four decades.

According to the report published by Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday, the woman said that she was 13 when her family married her off and she soon became pregnant.

When she had the baby boy, she looked after him for some time, but she said that she was too young to understand enough about nursing and to keep providing maternal care.

When she told an acquaintance that she was upset over her situation and how she had to take care of the baby, he advised her to strangle him to get rid of him.

“I then went on with the suggestion and killed my baby,” she said.

Her husband and her relatives did not have the slightest suspicion when she told them that the baby had died naturally and they arranged to have him buried in a cemetery in Jeddah.

When the police asked her to identify the acquaintance who suggested the strangling of the baby, she said that he died 30 years ago.

Her own husband has also died, she said.

The woman whose nationality and name were not given insisted on being punished for the murder, saying that the face of her baby had been haunting her day and night over the past years.

The woman was remanded in police custody until her case is fully investigated and taken up by competent authorities.