Spotlight on Egyptian abduction case ahead of Elsa’s sixth birthday
This week’s intensive media coverage of Bring Elsa Home – the concerted campaign to support the heartfelt plea of our client Naomi Button for the safe return of her five year old daughter Elsa – has touched people at home and abroad.
Tomorrow (February 2) Elsa Salama will be six and Naomi faces a second year without being able to celebrate her daughter’s birthday. Elsa was abducted by her father during a family holiday in Egypt in December 2011.
The head of our children’s department, Kate Banerjee, was interviewed alongside Naomi on This Morning to discuss Naomi’s search for her daughter. Following their television appearance many hundreds of viewers took to social networking sites to support Naomi’s appeal bring Elsa home to Leeds.
Naomi’s campaign has also received support from Rachel Reeves, MP for Bramley, Leeds who had a meeting with Alistair Burt, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to see if there was anything more that the Foreign Office could do to step up the search.
Naomi, who has not seen Elsa since December 2011, launched a Bring Elsa Home social networking campaign comprising a dedicated Facebook Page and Twitter account – @BringElsaHome – in the hope that someone, somewhere may come forward with information be able to ascertain her whereabouts.
Her plight continues to hit the headlines following a High Court ruling that her estranged husband Tamer Salama will remain behind bars for failing to disclose where his daughter is hidden. The judge also gave the go ahead for global publicity in the hope that Elsa will be returned to Naomi who lives in Bramley, Leeds.
Length and breadth of support
Our grateful thanks go out to the public and media who are supporting Naomi’s campaign to Bring Elsa Home.
Naomi’s appeal has received widespread coverage across TV channels including BBC Breakfast, Sky News, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV and BBC News 24 and national press including The Telegraph and The Independent. Our local press and radio / TV stations ITV Calendar, Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post, BBC Look North, Radio Aire and BBC Radio Leeds are behind the appeal and are running stories about Elsa’s abduction. We must also give huge thanks to local news agency Ross Parry for their key role in spreading Naomi’s story to newspaper readers across the UK.
As a result of this tremendous coverage and support we are receiving e-mails offering help which we deeply appreciate.
Sadly, cases of parental child abduction are on the increase. The Foreign Office’s Child Abduction Section is receiving an average of four calls per day and at Jones Myers, we are receiving an average of one enquiry per week.