A family living in Poplar are searching for their nanny from the Philippines who has been missing for over a month and who disappeared less than a week after being in the UK.

Samira Mohammad Atih, 33, vanished on March 6 from the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush which she was visiting with the two children she was looking after and their mother, Badriya Alaraimi, 33.

The Omani family moved to England from their home country, where they were holidaying, on February 28 to rent a house in Milligan Street and Ms Atih had been with them for two years to look after their four-year-old son and one-year-old daughter.

Ms Alaraimi said: “She said she would be working for us here and then she disappeared.

“If she decided to leave herself, why not take her clothes with her?

“Maybe someone has tried to recruit her in some way or she has got involved with a group.

“She never showed any intention of disappearing.”

On the day she disappeared, she told the family she was going to meet a cousin but did not return and has not answered her mobile phone since.

Ms Alaraimi contacted Ms Atih’s sister in Kuwait and was told they did not have a cousin in London and that “someone has poisoned her [Ms Atih’s] brain” without expanding on what that meant.

The sister also said she was sure that Ms Atih would come back.

Ms Atih, who speaks good English and Arabic, has a husband and three children in the Philippines.

Ms Alaraimi, a doctor, moved to England to register for a postgraduate course at Queen Mary University London which will start in September and her husband, Issa Alsheibani, 31, is currently working as a diplomat in Paris.

Police have issued a description of Ms Atih as of Oriental appearance, medium build, approximately 5 ft 1 inches tall, with shoulder length black hair with a centre parting and no fringe.

She was last seen wearing a short grey jacket and jeans and was carrying a small white and black handbag carried diagonally over her shoulder.

Anyone with any information call Tower Hamlets police on 0207 275 4506 (8am-4pm) or 0300 123 1212 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.