Mother launches appeal to find abducted daughter

A mother has launched a worldwide appeal to help find her five-year-old daughter who was snatched by her father in Egypt.

Elsa Salama, who will be six next month, has not been seen or heard from by her mother Naomi Button, 39, who lives in Leeds, since a family visit to Egypt in 2011.

Last week, her father, Tamer Salama, had another year added to his jail sentence for his continuing failure to comply with court orders to return his daughter to her mother in the UK.

Salama was told by a judge sitting at the High Court in London, that it was now time for him to “wake up” and recognise that the “state of affairs” was not in the best interests of his daughter Elsa.

Egyptian-born Salama, 35, has been in custody since January last year and was serving a total of two years for contempt of court until Mr Justice Cobb ruled that he had committed fresh breaches of the court orders made in relation to Elsa and should serve another year.

Now Ms Button is launching an international appeal to help find Elsa.

She told Sky News: “The worst times are when I wake up in the middle of the night.

“I worry that she’s crying for me.

“I wonder that she thinks I just left her.

“I don’t know what she’s been told. I don’t know if she thinks I don’t want her and I just left here in Egypt.”

She said: “Please just let her come home to her mummy. She found it very difficult being away from me for any length of time.

“I know that she wants to be back home with mummy and I hope that they do the right thing.”

Elsa since was abducted in the resort of Sharm El Sheikh on December 27 as she visited her father’s family.