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2 asylum-seeking Saudi women found dead in the United States

November 1, 2018 at 4:44 am

Two asylum-seeking Saudi women found dead in the United States (AP)

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is investigating the deaths of two Saudi sisters after discovering the bodies of both young women washed up on the Hudson River bank last week.

According to The Guardian, the corpses of Tala, 16, and her sister Rotana Farea, 22, were found on the river bank on October 24, bound to each other by a duct tape, more than 360 kilometres away from their residence in the city of Fairfax, Virginia.

Tala and Rotana have gone missing since August. However, the girls’ mother told the investigators who were looking into the case, the day before discovering the bodies, that an official in the Embassy of Saudi Arabia contacted her and ordered the family to return to the kingdom because her daughters had sought political asylum in the United States.

As such, investigators revealed yesterday that they were still unable to determine the cause of the two sisters’ demise. The girls’ bodies, which carried no sign of violence, were fully clothed and bound to face each other, reported The Guardian.

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The Saudi consulate in New York announced in a statement that “a lawyer has been appointed to pursue the case,” adding that the young ladies’ brother was with them in Washington.

The newspaper pointed out that the office of forensic sciences investigating the cause of death stated that no signs of violence were shown on the victims, who were assumed to have jumped into the river from the George Washington Bridge in New York.

The Guardian said that the two sisters moved to the United States with their mother in 2015, and settled in the city of Fairfax in the suburbs of Washington, according to police statements.

The NYPD claimed that Tala and Rotana have left the family home and went to live in a shelter after they had disappeared earlier in December 2017. Once again, the two young women were reported missing on August 24.