British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab on Wednesday said that footage of Princess Latifa, daughter of Dubai’s ruler, saying she is being held hostage is “distressing” and the British government would “watch closely” the response of the United Nations, reported AFP. Latifa has not been seen in public since she attempted to flee the United Arab Emirates in March 2018 but was caught by Emirati commandos on the coast in India.

In a video aired by BBC Panorama, the princess said she is being held captive by her father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and fears for her life.

“They are very distressing pictures,” Raab told Sky News on Wednesday.

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“The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights will be following up on what we see, and we’ll be watching and monitoring that very closely,” he added.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said it would soon question the UAE about Princess Latifa. 

Meanwhile, a spokesman said the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention could launch an investigation after analysing Latifa’s videos.

As per the report by BBC, the video clips were secretly filmed a year after Latifa was captured and returned to Dubai.

The undated videos were broadcast as Latifa’s friends voiced concern that they are no longer receiving secret messages from her, the BBC said.

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The videos showed Latifa crouched in a corner of what she says is a bathroom. She says that men from the Emirates sat on her, tried to tie her up and injected her with a sedative.

In 2019, Haya Bint Al Hussein, Sheikh Mohammed’s ex-wife, fled to London, where she applied for a forced marriage protection order relating to their school-age children.

The Dubai emir subjected Haya to intimidation, a British High Court judge ruled last year, granting her application for the children to be made wards of the court allowing them to live in London with her.