An influential Muslim family from Port Elizabeth has asked President Jacob Zuma to help them get their four children, who are being detained in Saudi Arabia, released.
Sunday newspaper, Rapport reports that according to the father of the children, Nazir Desai, Saudi authorities refused to say why the children had been in custody for more than a month without being charged.
The family was in the news in March when a young relative, whose identity may not be disclosed because of her age, tried to leave the country to join the radical Islamic State Group.
Her lawyer Zehir Omar confirmed that Desai and other family members stopped the relative at the PE airport, before she could get on a plane to Syria.
Nazir's children, all in their 20s, came to South Africa for a short holiday before their arrest when they returned to Saudi Arabia on November 23.
