Girl snatched by genies comes at night: residents

Saudi police have intensified a campaign to search a Yemeni girl who vanished more than 40 days ago from her village, where her relatives believe she was snatched by genies.

After failing to locate the 23-year-old girl, her family started to distribute leaflets and stick posters on mosques in the hope they will get any information on her whereabouts.

“We are living in tragic conditions because of my sister’s disappearance,” her brother Ahmed Ali said, quoted by the Saudi online Arabic language daily Sabq on Sunday.

“She has been under the spell of jinn (genies) and this may have to do with her disappearance… it’s nearly 41 days now and there is no trace of her despite intensifying police search for her.”

Newspapers last week said the girl left her house in her mountainous village near the western town of Taif and never returned.

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

Ali said his unmarried sister was carrying a bag and a dress when she left the house six weeks ago.

He said she had run away from home a year ago but was found at another house on the same day.

“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.”

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