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NYPD
Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were found stuck together in the Hudson River
New York police are investigating the deaths of two sisters from Saudi Arabia who were stuck together in the Hudson River last week.
Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were discovered face-to-face and fully dressed without any obvious signs of trauma, police said.
Investigators say that it is too early to determine whether a crime has been committed or whether their death was caused by a suicide.
The girls had recently asked for American asylum, police said.
The Farea sisters left Saudi Arabia to settle in Fairfax, Virginia, in 2015, with their mother, and had already fled their homes, according to US officials.
But investigators say the way they were found dead at the edge of a river more than 400 km from their family's home remains a "puzzle".
The Saudi Arabian consulate general said in a statement that embassy officials had contacted their families, adding that the sisters were students "accompanying their brother to Washington."
The Associated Press, citing New York police, said that the day before their bodies were discovered, their mother received a call from a Saudi embassy official ordering the family to leave, the girls having asked political asylum.
The girls were discovered last Wednesday at Riverside Park, dressed in leggings and black jackets and tapes around the waist and ankles.
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NYPD
Police released sketches of girls last week in an effort to identify their bodies
The police initially speculated that the girls would have jumped off the George Washington Bridge, but ruled out after finding a lack of obvious injuries they would have suffered in the fall.
After releasing the Sisters' sketches, the police were able to identify them on Friday and seek the public's help to learn more about their lives in the New York metropolitan area over the past two months.
At a press conference held on Wednesday, the chief of the city's detectives said that there were "gaps" in the sisters' story, which investigators are trying to solve.
"I am convinced that once the investigation is over, we will have a good idea of what exactly happened," said Detective Dermot Shea.
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