A MOTHER is fighting to be reunited with her two-year-old daughter, snatched by her father in Egypt. A'ishah Sabra, from Bury, was bundled into a car after being snatched from a cafe.

Her distraught mother Leila Sabra, who is divorced from A'ishah's dad, has only spoken to her daughter once since May.

Heartbreaking

In a heartbreaking phone call she heard the little girl screaming for her `mummy'.

Leila, from Whitefield, has been fighting for access to the tot through the Egyptian courts.

Her case has been taken up by Bury South MP and Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis and Greater Manchester Police are investigating the abduction.

Leila met her former husband when she went to Egypt on holiday in November 2005.

They kept in contact when she returned home and married in Egypt the following July.

Leila became pregnant and suffered medical complications, so returned to Whitefield.

Her husband joined her for three months when A'ishah was born at St Mary's Hospital, in Manchester. Leila took her daughter to live in the tourist resort of Hurghada, in Egpyt, where her ex-husband ran a quad bike tours company. Within weeks the relationship had broken down and she returned to England.

They divorced in Manchester in June last year, agreeing that A'ishah would live with her mother, but visit Egypt once a year to see her father. They visited her father's family home in Kafr El Sheikh last December and returned to Hurghada on May 8. A'ishah was abducted on May 16.

mourning

Leila, 32, who has recently returned to Britain for medical care, said: "I feel like I am mourning my daughter but I know she is alive so I am also fighting to get her back.

"I brought A'ishah up on my own and until she was taken she had never been away from me.

"She is very young and she needs her mother. She is a British citizen and I have custody of her - this is not right. I am fighting as hard as I can but I feel like I am fighting the whole of Egypt on my own."

Leila, a market researcher, is not allowed to work in Egypt and has been supported by family and friends including members of the Khizra Mosque in Cheetham Hill. Mr Lewis said: "We are very concerned about this situation.

"We have put them in touch with the Foreign Office who have been assisting them in Egypt. I am due to meet her in the next few days to consider ways to provide assistance."

Former Manchester lord mayor Afzal Khan, president of the Leila's mosque, said: "It is a shocking story. Leila is going through hell."

A GMP spokesman said: "We have been investigating to see what support we can give."
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