Caring cop set to reunite lost girl, 4, with her mother
A LOST four-year-old who made the perilous boat journey from North Africa to Italy alone will be reunited with her mother from Ivory Coast, thanks to an extraordinary coincidence.
Oumoh, who had been taken from her father’s family by her mother under the threat of female genital mutilation, was rescued at sea and brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa on November 5, with 15 other migrants.
But not one of the other passengers – mostly women and children – admitted knowing who she was, according to police inspector Maria Volpe, who looks after migrant minors arriving in Sicily.
“Mamma Maria”, as she is known, went to the island halfway to Tunisia to retrieve the girl and on November 9 Oumoh was entrusted to a Palermo children’s village.
Volpe, who has 20 years’ experience with child migrants, said: “She had arrived a few days earlier. “She seemed quite calm.” Fate then intervened in the guise of Nassade, an eight-year-old rescued last week off the coast of Libya and brought to Lampedusa along with her mother and baby brother.
At the island’s reception centre, a police officer who wanted a chance to speak to Nassade’s mother without interruption let the child look at the pictures on her cellphone to distract her.
“It’s Oumoh, it’s Oumoh!” she suddenly exclaimed.
It appears Nassade had met the young girl from Ivory Coast in a reception centre in Tunis.
And to the police officer’s astonishment, Nassade’s mother was able to provide the phone number for Oumoh’s mother.
Through her tears, the four-year-old’s mother said she had taken Oumoh away from home after her husband’s family insisted that the little girl had to undergo female circumcision.
They had travelled to Tunis, where she had left Oumoh with a friend while she returned to the Ivory Coast to collect some belongings.
But the friend had had the chance to set sail for Italy and had taken Oumoh with her, though she kept her distance on their arrival.
Volpe, who spoke to the mother several times by telephone, said: “The mother took longer than expected and when she returned to Tunis, her daughter was gone.”
Rome and Tunis are now arranging to reunite mother and child.
Early this month Italian President Sergio Mattarella included “Mamma Maria” among 40 everyday heroes to receive Italy’s Order of Merit. – The Telegraph