"It was an empty room with a bed basically. I didn't get any food or water but in the middle of the night they guards clearly felt sorry for me so once immigration police and everyone had gone, the guards would sneak me a drink.

“They had a half-drunk bottle of 7 Up. They did this thing of pouring it into two glasses and one of them drank one glass to show it was safe to drink… The guards were really nice.”

Ms Phillips-Harris said she was eventually able to enter after her contacts helped her to secure a new visa and obtain a United States passport. She spent six months travelling around the country and returned to New Zealand last month.

The Kazakhstan border service has since denied Ms Phillips-Harris's claims, saying that she was refused entry because she did not have a visa. The Kazakhstan Embassy in the UK states that citizens of New Zealand need a visa to travel to Kazakhstan until 1 January 2017, after which they may travel to the country for a maximum of 30 days without one.

The New Zealand ministry of foreign affairs and trade told The New Zealand Herald it was "aware of the case, and a consular official has been in touch with family in New Zealand".