A Yemeni girl has been missing for nearly a month in Saudi Arabia and her family believe she could have been snatched by jinn (genies), a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The 23-year-old girl stepped out of her house in a mountainous village near the western town of Taif and never returned, prompting a massive police search campaign, Sabq Arabic language daily said.

“Some people told police they saw her walking on a hill not far from her house then vanished again,” the paper said.

“Her brothers and some residents in the village said she sometimes appears at night and then suddenly disappears…they told police that they believe she has been haunted and taken by jinn.”

The paper quoted her brother, Ahmed Ali, as saying his sister ran away from home a year ago but was found at another house on the same day. He said his sister had been nervous and moody but had no problems with the family just before she vanished again.

“On that day, she was with my other sisters washing in the second floor of the house…she then went down to the ground floor…my sisters waited for her but she never came back,” he said.

“Before she vanished, we used to take her to some Koran reciters and scholars…she used to walk into their places but we had to carry her on our way out as she appeared to be in a trance…a red fluid sometimes oozed out of her ears and noses…it was not blood and it had a strange smell…some scholars told us that she is haunted and others said she is under jinn guardianship.”