Saskatoon police are searching for the taxi driver who delivered a 26-year-old Melfort woman to a convenience store in Mount Royal in the wee hours of Tuesday morning after she had been picked up by five men in a truck, locked in a basement and sexually assaulted for hours.

According to a police news release, RCMP initially received information Monday night indicating that a woman was being unlawfully confined, but officers were unable to locate her. The woman was found Tuesday around 3:15 a.m., when she called police from a convenience store in the 1500 block of 22nd Street West. She told officers she had fled the basement of what is believed to be an east side home and hailed a cab.

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The woman told police she was walking near a gas station on Highway 5 around 4 p.m. on Monday when five men, possibly of Middle Eastern descent, approached her in a black Dodge truck. The woman said the men drove her to a house, forced her into the basement and sexually assaulted her for hours. She said she eventually escaped and waved down a cab, which she took to the convenience store on 22nd Street and called police.

According to police, the woman described the driver as being between 35 and 40 years old, with a short beard, dark buzzcut and thicker build, and wearing a black dress jacket, jeans and tan Timberland boots.

One passenger in the truck was described as being between 25 and 30 years old, tall and skinny, with a beard. Another passenger was described as being around 27 or 28 years old, slim, approximately 6′ tall, with a beard and short black frizzy hair.