“She called me a few nights back to report that she, an Indian woman and a Pakistani driver named Arshad had left Majmaa and was already at the Diriyah police station in Riyadh,” Charge d'Affaires Ezzedin H. Tago told Arab News.
Leonora also called Arab News to say Arshad had stopped the car and was supposed to fetch someone elsewhere when the police approached them. The last thing she said was that they were being taken to the police station. She also sent a text message indicating their location, which Arab News forwarded to the embassy.
Tago said he would ask Vice Consul Roussel R. Reyes to dispatch an embassy team to assist her. When contacted, Reyes told Arab News that the team he had sent did not find Leonora, the Indian woman or Arshad at the police station.
“In fact, we think that they were somewhere in Naseem,” Reyes said, adding that Leonora had also asked him to help the Indian woman who was with her. When he tried to call her back, the phone was turned off.
Embassy officials said they would seek the help of local authorities in Riyadh and Majmaa to find Leonora, the Indian woman and Arshad, who is believed to be involved in human trafficking.
Earlier, Leonora called Arab News to say that Arshad was supposed to drop her at a supermarket along Exit 10 in Riyadh.
“From there, I would call the embassy to request that someone pick me up and bring me to the Bahay Kalinga (BK),” she said.
BK is a temporary shelter for runaway maids run by members of the Filipino community.
Leonora was recruited in the Philippines last year as a caregiver but ended up working as a maid. She has two children under the custody of her mother back home. Before leaving the Philippines, she had worked at a gasoline station and as cashier in a restaurant where she met her husband.
“My husband and I had been separated for two years when I left the Philippines for Saudi Arabia,” she said.
