A Saudi teenager said on Sunday that she was being held against her will at a Bangkok airport while fleeing her abusive family — and claimed she would be killed if forced to return to them.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, pleaded for help in a series of tweets, saying authorities were planning to send her back to Saudi Arabia, where she feared family members would then kill her.
“My family is strict and locked me in a room for six months just for cutting my hair,” she wrote. “I’m sure 100 percent they will kill me as soon as I get out of Saudi jail.”
Qunun said that she had escaped her family while they were vacationing in Kuwait two days ago, and that she was trying to reach Australia to seek asylum.
But a Saudi Embassy official followed her and took her passport while she was in the Thai capital’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, she said.
Qunun, who also posted videos, said was being held in the Miracle Transit Hotel at the airport.
She even appealed to President Trump for rescue.
“@realDonaldTrump please help me,” she tweeted. “I’m hoping that you heard about me. I’m a Saudi girl who fled from her family. Now I could be killed if they drag me back to my male guardian.”
She said she was to be sent back Monday on Kuwait Airways Flight 412, slated to leave Bangkok at 11:15 a.m. local time for Kuwait City.
“Please help me by stop it from leaving,” she tweeted.
Thai immigration officials said Qunun was trying to escape an arranged marriage and was held in Thailand for not presenting “any necessary documents.”
“In order to enter our country, she must comply with our regulations . . . This is their [Saudi Arabia’s] internal affairs. We are simply performing our duties” Surachet Hakpal, chief of Thailand’s Immigration Bureau, told CNN.
“It’s a family problem.”
Human Rights Watch’s Asia deputy director, Phil Robertson, criticized the Thai authorities.
“What country allows diplomats to wander around the closed section of the airport and seize the passports of the passengers?” he told The Guardian.
Qunun’s plight echoes that of another Saudi woman, Dinal Ali Lasloom, who was stopped in the Philippines in April 2017 as she was fleeing her family.
Lasloom, who was 24 and also heading to Australia for refuge, was reportedly heard screaming for help as men carried her with duct tape on her mouth, feet and hands at Manila’s main airport.
She was sent back to Saudi Arabia and has not been heard from since.