JEDDAH, 8 August 2007— Whoever knows where Christia A. Solomon is, please speak up.
This request comes from her mother and friends desperate to know whatever happened to the woman, a mother of two, who came to Riyadh in May 2002 to work as a baby sitter.
In an e-mail forwarded to the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh and to media, Susan A. Arastam, an employee of the Royal Commission Hospital in Jubail, said she used to get in touch with her daughter in Riyadh “from time to time” by cell phone until the night of Feb. 3, 2005.
Worried because Solomon’s cell phone was no longer in service, she called her daughter’s employer and was told that she woman left for the Philippines on Feb. 7, or four days after their last phone conversation.
Surprised that her daughter did not tell her she was leaving, she called up her daughter’s husband and her son in Jolo in the southern Philippines and also learned that she was not there.
In her further inquiries with Solomon’s employer, she was told that her daughter was turned over to the agency in Riyadh that recruited her.
A few weeks later, she received a letter from the manager of the agency containing an immigration certification stating that her daughter left the Kingdom on Feb. 7, 2005.
Arastam said she asked for help from the embassy as early as March 2005 and made another request on May 15, 2006 and has not received satisfactory answer on her daughter’s disappearance.
“I did everything to find my daughter but still there is no clue to her whereabouts, and I am really losing hope,” she wrote in her e-mail.
Responding to a query by Arab News, Ambassador Antonio P. Villamor said in a letter dated July 31 that the embassy inquired about Solomon’s whereabouts last year and learned that the woman did arrive in Manila the day after she left Riyadh.
Attached with Villamor’s reply was a letter by Executive Director Enrique Galang Jr. of the Bureau of Immigration dated May 24, 2006, to Undersecretary Esteban B. Conejos Jr., head of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ office of migrant workers’ affairs.
Galang cited the bureau’s records showing that Christia A. Solomon, bearer of passport No. FF831547, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila on Feb. 8, 2005, on board Emirates Airlines flight EK334 via Dubai.
Arastam said someone named Indah Jamasali could help give a clue to her daughter’s whereabouts.
“I remember my daughter was mentioning a name Indah Jamasali. To Indah Jamasali, Please contact me, whoever you are, wherever you are. Please! I need your help,” she said.
Whoever has information may contact Arastan at +966-5029-33729.