Women in Almaty report a foreigner harassing them with a strange request

Tengrinews.kz – A resident of Almaty reported a man who approached her underage daughter with a strange request. She decided to talk about it on Threads to draw attention to the problem. The situation was commented on by the city police press service.
What happened
The woman posted an emotional message on Threads. She said that the previous evening a foreign man had approached her 17-year-old daughter with an odd request.

“He started calling out to her, stepped out toward her from some shrubbery that was very dense there, said the word ‘hello’ three times in Russian and showed her his phone screen, where, via a translator from Arabic, it said: ‘My girlfriend died five days ago, I urgently need a hug.’ He then started motioning for her to go into those bushes. She got scared, said ‘no’ and ran away,” the girl’s mother wrote.

According to her, when the daughter came home, she told her mother about the incident. After what happened, the woman asked for recommendations for self-defence courses for the girl.
“Stay with me or hug me, I need it”
Users on Threads also recalled another story: a woman from Almaty recently wrote that a stranger had also approached her with a strange request. She posted about it on social media.

“On 21 December at 11:40 a.m. on Sharipov Street, I was harassed by a foreign student of Arab appearance. On his phone there was a phrase in a translator: ‘My girlfriend died five days ago. Please stay with me or hug me, I need it.’ It was hardly about empathy — more the thought of a social experiment video made me decide to hug him for just five seconds. He hugged me way too tightly. When I started patting him on the shoulder so he would let go, he began to molest me,” the woman wrote in her post.

The Almaty resident noted that unfortunately she was not able to fight back on the spot.

“But he took my look and my frozen reaction seriously and left quickly. I wrote about this here to warn all women. I filed a report with the police that same day,” she added.

After the new incident, she decided to repost her message and stressed that she is in contact with the mother of the 17-year-old girl.

“I demand that you warn all girls and women you know! Because he is still out there,” she wrote.

What the police say
The situation was commented on by the Almaty police press service.

“The report by a city resident about possible harassment of her underage daughter by an unknown man has been registered with the Almaly District Police Department. A review is currently under way to establish all the circumstances of what happened. Officers are taking measures to identify and locate the man in question,” the police said.

Following the review, his actions will be given a legal assessment in accordance with the law.