A MUM in Torrox (Málaga) has reported her daughter missing after the young woman had to flee Dubai in a hurry with her girlfriend and said: “If you don't hear from me by tomorrow, it means something bad has happened.”
María Jimena Rico Montero, 28, lives in London with her long-term girlfriend, Shaza, who is Egyptian but whose family relocated to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) travelled to the Middle Eastern city after receiving a call to say Shaza's mother was seriously ill.
Once they arrived, they found this to be a cover – her mother was in perfect health, but the family wanted Shaza back in Dubai as they had reported her to the police there for being homosexual.
The girls had to get out of the UAE fast to avoid arrest, and made it to the former Soviet nation of Georgia where they had friends they could stay with.
Their idea was to get a flight from Georgia back to London within three days.
But Shaza's family traced the couple to Georgia and attempted to kidnap hter, as well as ripping up María Jimena's passport and visa and proffering death threats at them both.
The couple and the Egyptian father were arrested, but after they were released the two women were taken to the Turkish border.
This was their only hope of getting home, since they no longer had passports and could not book a flight.
After various attempts, they managed to sneak through the border into Turkey and got a bus as far as the town of Samsun, where they were arrested yet again on suspicion of being homosexual.
Fortunately, they were released a few hours later and taken by police to the bus station.
María Jimena rang her mother and told her what happened.
She said the couple were planning to get a coach to Istanbul and then go straight to the Spanish embassy.
María Jimena and her mother Ramona Teresa are in fact Argentinian, but both have Spanish nationality after moving to Spain when María Jimena was very small, over 20 years ago.
According to Ramona, her daughter gave her details of the hotel they had booked in Istanbul and said that if she did not hear from her by the middle of Monday, to contact authorities in Spain as 'something bad would have happened to' the girls.
“They never reached the hotel,” said Ramona, who is terrified for the safety of her daughter and daughter-in-law given that 'homosexuality is a crime and very much persecuted in Arab [sic] countries' – although she still cannot believe Shaza's family would have 'reported their own daughter'.
So far, searches by the Spanish and Argentinian embassies in conjunction with Turkish police have not borne fruit.
María Jimena's mum has released the above photo of the girls – María Jimena left and Shaza right - in the hope that someone may have seen them and be able to help them.
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