SINGARAJA

A 24-year-old mother of two is critically ill in Buleleng Hospital after apparently trying to kill herself by drinking pesticide and her two young children with ice-cream laced with rat poison because of family pressures.

Neighbours broke into her house when they heard screams and took the woman and the children to hospital. Police said the woman had left an intended suicide note for her husband, a merchant seaman.

According to police the note said she hoped he would find a new wife more acceptable to his parents and that it was better for her children to die with her rather than be brought up by a stepmother.

The two children, one aged four and the other three months, are recovering in hospital. The woman remains in intensive care.