Saudi teen refugee arrives safely in Canada after dramatic asylum plea

Asylum Seeker Rahaf Mohammed Al-Qunun, 18, smiles as she is introduced to the media at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

(Image credit: Cole Burston/Getty Images)

published 13 January 2019

An 18-year-old woman named Rahaf Al-Qunun arrived in Canada Saturday after being granted asylum to avoid returning to her home country of Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qunun fled her family while on a trip to Kuwait and flew to Thailand, where she barricaded herself in an airport hotel room while launching a social media campaign pleading for asylum.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday Al-Qunun would be welcomed to his country as a refugee. She was met at the airport in Toronto by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who dubbed Al-Qunun "a very brave new Canadian."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.