A Sudanese refugee in Melbourne who drove the family car into a lake with four of her children, killing three of them, has been sentenced to at least 20 years in jail, a judge said Tuesday.

Akon Guode, 37, came to Australia in 2006 after fleeing the civil war in Sudan, where she was raped after witnessing her husband's murder.

She drove with four of her seven children in the car into a lake in the Melbourne suburb of Wyndham Vale in April 2015, killing a 16-month-old toddler and 4-year-old twins.

Goude pleaded guilty in January.

Victorian Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry sentenced Guode to a maximum imprisonment of 26 years and six months. She could be released on parole after 20 years.

Guode's visa also has been cancelled, and she faces deportation once her prison sentence is over.

Lasry said the children's deaths were an ‘all-encompassing tragedy.’  ‘People don't understand why you did what you did,’ he said. ‘In my opinion, your actions were the product of extreme desperation.’  Goude cried in court as the judge talked about the difficult personal circumstances she had experienced in the years before the incident, the Australian Associated Press reported.

After moving to Australia, Goude had an affair with a cousin of her dead husband and had four children with him. The local Sudanese community boycotted her because of the affair, and she faced financial problems, Lasry said.

The judge said Guode had planned to kill her children and had spent several hours driving around the lake.

‘These children trusted you as their mother, as they were entitled to,’ Lasry said. ‘Your betrayal of that trust was catastrophic.’              

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