Dubai Police on Thursday shared fresh details of the case of a five-year-old boy who was found alone in a mall last week.
They said the child was abandoned by his biological Asian mother five years ago and was being raised by a friend of the same nationality.
Police said the mother left the country never to return.
Brigadier Ali Ghanem, director of Al Muraqqabat Police Station, said that the police received a call within 90 minutes of them sharing the details of the boy on social media.
“Ninety minutes after we called people to help identify the boy on September 7, we received a phone call saying that the boy was seen with an Asian woman in Sharjah,” he said.
The Dubai Police, in co-operation with Sharjah Police, arrested the woman, who then told them that the boy was not her son, and she had been asked by his mother to take care of him five years ago.
The mother never returned after leaving the country, the woman added, and said she didn't have any contact details of any friends or family members of the mother.
She had been taking care of the child for five years without telling the authorities, hoping that the mother would return.
However, the financial pressure of the boy's care and education took a toll on her, and she sought help from one of her friends, who advised her to give the child to another woman.
The other woman, who lived in Al Muteena area, took care of the child for some time, but then wanted to give him up.
She, too, asked a friend of hers, and this friend came up with the idea of surrendering the boy to the police after saying he was found lost in a mall.
Brigadier Ghanem said the police took blood samples of the four women for a DNA test, and found that none of them was the boy's mother.