Chinese baby slashed by angry nanny

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-15 14:27

SHANGHAI - A 20-month-old Shanghai girl was recovering Thursday after her family's maid, angry at her employers, put her on a chopping block and slashed her face with a kitchen knife, police said.

Police in the southern Shanghai district of Nanhui confirmed the attack, reported in local newspaper Shanghai Daily. They refused further comment.

The baby's mother was also injured while trying to wrestle the knife away from the maid after she heard her daughter screaming late Tuesday night, the report said.

Li Yuanmeng, a 20-month-old Shanghai girl, receives treatment at Shanghai No. 9 People's Hospital Wednesday after she was sliced up by a family nanny who was angry with the infant's parents. [Shanghai Daily/Weng Lingling]

The newspaper carried a photo of the baby showing her with a long gash running across her chin from one jaw to the other. Doctors used 130 stitches to close her wounds, it said.

Police arrested Zhang Xuexia, 47, who was said to be angry because she believed the family was planning to fire her.

Many Shanghai families employ domestic helpers from the countryside, and relations can be tense, especially around the time of the Lunar New Year, the country's biggest holiday.

The report said that Zhang, who like many maids in Shanghai was from nearby Anhui province, thought the family planned to send her back to her village because they bought her a ticket to go home for the holiday, which begins January 25.

The family said they gave her the ticket to let her go back to see her family.