Relatives said the girl told them that she was so frightened when her bridegroom came close to her that she ran into her room and locked herself up.

“She remained inside her room for two days before sneaking out and fleeing back to her family,” the Saudi Alhayat daily said in a report from the southern province of Jazan.

The London-based newspaper quoted the man as saying he had paid SR65,000 (Dh64,000) dowry (money paid by a man to his bride under Islamic law) for her Yemeni father, adding that her mother is Saudi.

“I feel that there is a conspiracy by her mother against me,” he said. “I will go to court tomorrow and demand that her parents give me back my money.”