Featured Image Credit: Instagram/marie louna
Topics: World News, Dubai, Crime
Joe Harker
Warning: This article contains allegations which some readers may find distressing.
Maria Kovalchuk, the model who suffered horrific injuries in Dubai, said she heard four chilling words before trying to escape from a group of men who 'threw her off a ledge'.
She was found at the side of a road in Dubai having 'fallen from a height', with her injuries including a broken spine and limbs which left her in a coma as she faces several more weeks of recovery. Maria is currently learning to walk on crutches after the injuries inflicted on her.
After she went missing there had been concerns that the 20-year-old woman had been kidnapped into sexual slavery or subjected to a Dubai 'porta potty party' where rich men pay to abuse and degrade young women.
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However, Maria did not say she was paid to be at the party and instead explained that she had been invited to it after missing her flight from Dubai to Thailand due to oversleeping and met a man who claimed his father would fly her to her destination on a private jet and told her she could stay in his hotel room.
She said there was a party in the hotel room with 'rich Russian kids' who became aggressive with her as she wasn't drinking and started pushing her around.
They took her personal belongings, including her passport, and she remembered them telling her the words 'you belong to us' which the model said she 'tried to take as a joke' as the men then said 'we will do whatever we want'.
The Ukrainian model explained that they then 'intimidated' her by 'smashing bottles on the floor', and another woman took her belongings and left the room with them.
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The aggression rose after the men 'hinted' that they wanted sex and Maria tried to escape, but the men 'dragged her back into the room'.
She was later able to escape and took refuge in a nearby construction site, saying she 'ran to the nearest building' and 'knew they were coming', but the model said the men hunted her down and 'beat her'.
Maria said she didn't remember the violence inflicted on her, though her injuries were consistent with a fall from a height, alleging that the police in Dubai waited three months until CCTV footage of the attack was wiped to start investigating and so there was now 'no evidence'.
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"I think that maybe I was thrown. Or it was a beating. One of two options, the injuries looked like either a beating or a fall," Maria said.
"Most likely, there was a blow to the head, I suppose. The next scene [that] I remember is me asking for help from a passing car, which had already stopped and called an ambulance and the police."
She says her medical bills were paid by the authorities in Dubai, and Maria's mother Anna claims that in exchange the model was 'asked not to say anything that would cast the Emirates authorities in a negative light'.
The men were detained by police in Dubai for one day and claim that Maria had asked to come to the party, alleging that they were trying to find and help the 20-year-old woman rather than beating her and pushing her off a building.
Maria's mother Anna said that a claim from police in Dubai declared that the 20-year-old had attempted to commit suicide 'to protect her honour' was untrue.