Bouchra Marbui says she last saw her daughter on the morning of Friday, September 26, when she was getting her ready for school. She told the girl that her father would pick her up for the night.
“My birthday was the 29th. So she said, 'Mom, I made you a card for your birthday,'” Marbuchi, 31, said in a recent interview.
“I kissed her and said, ‘Thank you. Where is it? She said, “It's in my bag.” When I come back tomorrow I will show it to you.”
But Marbui never received the card.
Marbui said she had not seen her five-year-old daughter for more than a month after the girl was taken from the country by her father, Ahmed El-Gammal, despite a court order to stop him.
CBC News is not releasing the child's name to protect her privacy.
“I miss her smell. I miss her voice. I miss her when she was stubborn and stupid,” Marbuie said, clutching her daughter's stuffed toy.
“I miss her calling me mommy. I miss everything. When this happened, I feel like my life stopped.”
Newfoundland and Labrador police on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for El-Gammal, 36, on a charge of parental abduction in violation of a child custody or parenting order.
However, Marbui really wants to make sure her daughter is safe and return the teacher home.
Filmed on an airplane
According to text messages provided to CBC News and translated from Arabic, Marboui texted her ex-husband the morning after the sleepover asking him to drop her daughter off early. El-Gammal replied that he wanted to spend more time with her.
Then, at 5:46 p.m., El-Gammal wrote: “[Our daughter] and I returned to our country.”
He added: “Do you want [raise] tell her about our religion and ethics, you know where to find us.
At first Marbuie thought it was an empty threat, but she said she immediately drove to St. John's International Airport and called police along the way.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary confirmed to CBC News that it received a report of a child who was taken by a person known to her on the evening of Sept. 27.
“This is an active and ongoing investigation and the RNC is using all available resources to locate and confirm the safety of the child,” police said in a statement.
“We can confirm that this case did not meet the criteria for issuing an Amber Alert.”
Marbuie said police told her El-Gammal flew from Saint John to Montreal and then left the country.
Non-refoulement order gave 'a false sense of security'
Marboui said she suspected her ex-husband would try to bring their daughter to his home country of Egypt, so she applied for and received an emergency temporary court order to prevent the child from being removed from the province.
“I am extremely fearful that my husband will deny my four-year-old daughter my custody or remove him from my jurisdiction,” she wrote in an emergency temporary application filed May 16.
“I'm afraid that losing control of me will cause him to keep my daughter or move in with her. He knows I would come back to him if he had my daughter.”
In late May, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that the girl would live primarily with her mother in the home of Iris Kirby. They had been living in a women's shelter since Marboui ran away from the family home in March.
In court papers, El-Gammal disagreed, saying the family home was “suitable.”
“Child Protection did not express any concern about me as the father and I were seeing our daughter normally until she falsely stated that I was taking my daughter back to Egypt!” El-Gammal wrote in a June 6 family law filing.
El-Gammal wrote that he could not leave with her because the child’s Egyptian and Moroccan passports were with her mother.
Marbui believes El-Gammal obtained their daughter a new passport during a recent trip to Egypt, allowing him to leave the country with her. However, she did not receive any confirmation of this.
In court documents, El-Gammal asked the court to order non-refoulement and surrender of passports.
The non-removal order states that neither party can remove the child from the St. John's metro area without written permission from the other parent.
ElGammaI have not yet responded to questions emailed to CBC News on Wednesday.
Marbuie said she did what she thought was right to protect her daughter. She now questions the obvious gaps she sees in the system.
“This non-refoulement order has given me a false sense of security. That's why I'm so angry. Nobody is telling me it's nothing, it's just paper,” she said.
“So why give such an order, but there is no mechanism for its execution?”
The Canada Border Services Agency had not responded to questions from CBC News by Wednesday afternoon.
Marbui said her ex-husband's family tried to convince him to let her talk to their daughter, but that didn't happen. Her requests to see recent photographs of the girl were also denied. Marbui said El-Gammal stopped communicating with her after his landlord in St. John's accidentally told him about police involvement.
Marbui said El-Gammal's family told her her daughter didn't want to talk to her.
“I worry that she thinks I don’t need her,” she said.
“I don’t know if she really said she didn’t want to talk to me. This is not normal for me. [My daughter] was very, very attached to me. She is emotionally insecure. I know that.”
Marbui said that taking their daughter away was El-Gammal's way of punishing Marbui for leaving him.
El-Gammal wrote in a text message that he would allow Marbui to raise their daughter, but only in Egypt and “on my terms.”
“If you want [raise] That [daughter]it will be on my terms,” he said.
Temporary residence permit denied
The situation is complicated by Marbuie's immigration status in Canada.
Marbui is a Moroccan citizen. She arrived in St. John's in May 2024 on a closed work visa.
She applied for a temporary residence permit for victims of domestic violence, but was refused the day before her daughter was kidnapped.
Charlotte Sullivan, one of the lawyers assisting Marbui with the immigration case, said the case is now before the courts and they have raised the issue with Deputy Marbui's office to expedite its review.
“I can’t wait that long,” Marbui said. “I need to go back there and get my baby back.”
Sullivan said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada provided no basis for rejecting Marbuie's application.
Meanwhile, Marbui asks for a health check on her daughter and even tells the police the address where she believes El-Gammal is. But to date, she has not received any guarantees that the girl is safe.
Canada does not have an extradition treaty with Egypt.
Marbuie said the RNC told her they had made a request to both Interpol and the RCMP to coordinate a health check.
Interpol told CBC News it does not speak out on specific cases without the approval of the country in question.
The RCMP have not yet responded to CBC's request for comment.
Back at Iris Kirby's House, the playground is now covered in orange and yellow leaves. A message written in chalk wishing a kindergartener a happy birthday is fading. Season progress sign.
Marbuie said her daughter, whose closet is a sea of pink and glitter, was excited to dress up as a princess this year for Halloween.
Halloween events at the shelter have been canceled this year. Without it they will not move forward.
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