Activist Zeynab Javadli vanishes from Dubai home

Contact with Zeynab Javadli was lost on Tuesday and the BBC has been told her home in Dubai is locked and empty.

The British lawyer and activist, David Haigh, said he last spoke to Javadli on Tuesday night. Since that moment, he said, she has "vanished".

Javadli's mother - who had just arrived in Dubai for a visit - has since gone to her house and found it empty, with the locks changed.

She is understood to have been in touch with police in Dubai and the consulate of Azerbaijan - the country Javadli is from.

For months, Javadli had barely left the house as she believed security officers were waiting to take her children from her and possibly put her under arrest.

Last year, her ex-husband lodged a complaint with the police accusing her of kidnapping their daughters, in the latest development of their bitter custody dispute.

Javadli - who is a former international gymnast - has also been facing potential arrest for e-crimes - online offences - in the UAE after she livestreamed one of the showdowns last year.

At the time she explained her actions in a video message to Haigh, who's been advocating for her: "I knew that it was the last chance to be with my children as they would never let me see them again. I genuinely believed that it was my last chance, so I just opened a livestream and called for help."

Lawyers acting for Javadli's former husband, Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, have claimed in court hearings in the custody case over their children that she was an unfit mother who had failed to send her daughters to school, was living in a place unsuitable for the children when she was in a hotel, and that she had put the health of the youngest girl at risk.

Haigh says the current situation bears a "deeply troubling resemblance" to five years ago, when his communications were cut off with Princess Latifa, one of the daughters of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.