Hotel staff to pay out after tragic drownings

The general manager and two employees at the Holiday Beach Motel in Fujairah have been ordered to pay AED 400,000 ($109,000) in blood money after a three-year old Emirati child and two housemaids drowned in the hotel swimming pool in October.

Gulf News reports that the incident occured on October 23 2012 when the two maids - an Ethiopian woman aged 25, and a Sri Lanka lady aged 20 - drowned in a failed attempt to rescue three-year-old Salmeen Hadef Salem, who had fallen into the hotel’s adult pool.

The child was taken to hospital in critical condition and was due to be flown abroad for treatment, but died on November 8, two weeks after the incident.

According to Gulf News Fujairah Court has also ordered the three hotel employees to pay AED 500 ($136) each for causing the deaths during their stay at the hotel.