Sisters Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were discovered duct-taped at the ankles and waists facing each other and fully clothed without any obvious signs of trauma, according to New York police.

Two Saudi sisters were found dead in the Hudson River, New York under mysterious circumstances Wednesday, only a day after the Saudi embassy ordered them, their brother, and mother to return to the Arab nation, because the girls had applied for political asylum in the US.

16 year-old Tala Farea and 22 year-old Rotana Farea emigrated from Saudi Arabia to Fairfax, Virginia in 2015, while the Saudi Consulate General said in a statement that embassy officials had spoken to the family and found out that the sisters were students "accompanying their brother in Washington".

The deaths come at a sensitive time for the Saudi consulate, with Jamal Khashoggi's execution still a source of contention, and with news emerging Wednesday that an Indonesian maid had been executed in Saudi Arabia under auspicious circumstances.

The sisters were found 250 miles from their home, and were wearing black leggings and black jackets with their waists and ankles duct-taped together.

New York police are said to be puzzled how the girls were discovered so far away from their homes, along with the fact that they had no clear signs of trauma, which would have been correlative with a suicide jump.