Police Perplexed by Case of Sisters Found Dead in Beds

Saudi women were found in their Sydney, Australia, apartment
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 29, 2022 1:02 AM CDT
2 Sisters Lay Dead in Their Beds for a Month
Asra Abdullah Alsehli (left) and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli   (New South Wales Police)

Asra Abdullah Alsehli, 24, and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli, 23, moved to Sydney, Australia, from their native Saudi Arabia in 2017, possibly as asylum seekers, though that has not been officially confirmed. On June 7, they were found dead in their beds, each in their own bedroom, at their apartment. Sydney police believe they died there in early May, the BBC reports. They were not found until someone called police to do a welfare check on the women due to overdue rent, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Police now say that even after carrying out "extensive inquiries," they do not know what happened; the New Zealand Herald reports their bodies bore no sign of injury but their deaths are considered suspicious. Police have released the women's photographs in the hope that someone with information about them will come forward. Not much is known about the sisters' lives in Australia, and building managers, who had called the police asking for welfare checks on the women in the past, say they rarely left their apartment.

"They were scared of something," says one, who describes the women as reluctant to answer the door and "tucked in the corner like two little sparrows" once they did open it. They had expressed fears that their food deliveries were being tampered with. The older sister took out a Apprehended Domestic Violence Order in 2018, but it was later withdrawn and dismissed. Though nothing about their lives or deaths has been confirmed, a Saudi human rights activist notes that it "would not be the first case" of Saudi women who escaped domestic violence at home only to be murdered abroad, if that is indeed discovered to be what happened. (More Australia stories.)

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