Maider and her daughter smile at their meeting in Oran (Algeria) at the end of 2020. Ortiz de Arri family
Amira was a four-month-old baby when she left Spain with her parents for Algeria in May 2018.
Her mother, Maider Ortiz de Arri, a 23-year-old from Vitoria, has only managed to see her in the last four years on a few occasions, always under surveillance, with the help of an Arabic translator.
She has not been able to recover it, she is still being held by her father in that country.
The Algerian justice granted custody of the minor (she is now four years old) to her ex-partner, despite the fact that the court of gender violence in the capital of Alava had withdrawn her parental rights and a European arrest warrant was issued against him.
A judicial overturn in the African country and diplomatic pressure are the only hopes that Ortiz maintains to "free" the girl and return her to her house.
Just turned 17, this Vitorian began a relationship in mid-2016 with Mohamed El Habib Cherifi and a year later (on December 17, 2017) she gave birth to Amira.
The birth of the little girl was a relief in the ordeal that she lived with him.
She does not want to remove those stormy episodes and prefers that her mother, Mar Robles, do it: "My daughter had to endure screaming and aggression from the beginning."
Ortiz's life takes a turn shortly after the birth of his daughter.
He does not prevent him from traveling to Oran with the "abuser" and the baby.
“They left on May 1 [2018] and on May 3 Maider called us from there crying.
She was hitting him.
That day her partner took Amira out of her arms and forced her to pack.
He took her to the airport and, under threats, forced her to return home alone.
Maider couldn't say goodbye to Amira”, says the grandmother.
Then begins a long and turbulent effort to get his daughter back.
Ortiz denounced Cherifi for physical and psychological abuse and for separating her from her with threats from her minor.
The gender violence court issued a restraining order against him in January 2019, prohibited him from taking the little girl out of the national territory, withdrew his passport and denied him parental authority over the girl.
Mar Robles assures that, during this period, the ex-partner “has had Amira abandoned while he has continued to do misdeeds of all kinds;
he has never taken care of her ever.”
The minor had to enter a social center in Oran due to the lack of attention from her parent.
Ortiz traveled to Algeria again at the end of 2020 with the help of the Spanish Consulate in Oran.
He filed a complaint in that country and obtained the legal assistance of a native lawyer.
She testified for two and a half hours in court in the presence of her "aggressor", explains Mar Robles: "Maider lived in the French Bishopric at that time, but in a desperate attempt to get Amira back, she agreed to live with him [in Oran] while The court decided the case.
He suffered a lot during those almost seven months of stay in Algeria, but he made up for it with the satisfaction of visiting his daughter.
He fed her, dressed her, slept her… “But in March 2021 everything turned against him again.
Despite the fact that Ortiz provided the court with his psychosocial reports and the judicial resolution for ill-treatment against his ex-partner issued in Spain,
An Algerian judge awarded custody to the father due to the "cultural roots" of the minor.
In the resolution, she weighed that Amira only speaks Arabic, she has the first surname of her father and her dual nationality.
Maider and Amira in one of their meetings in Algeria. Family
In May 2021 Ortiz calls his parents again.
Desperate, she begs to be taken out of there.
She has not seen her daughter since, except in photographs of her.
A Saharawi friend from Vitoria helps her with the language to connect with Cherifi's relatives who raise the little girl.
“Amira lives without a father or mother,” Ortiz laments.
She does not know the whereabouts of her daughter, communications between the two were cut off a few months ago.
A few years earlier, Ana Rosa Castro suffered another similar torment.
She suffered very similar hardships.
Both did not know each other, but their stories are coincidental.
Both are from Vitoria, they fell in love very young with Algerian boys and had children with them.
They were victims of mistreatment.
Their daughters were also taken from them in a similar pattern: their parents took them to Oran and they remain there, “kidnapped”, they agree.
They have not been able to recover them.
The two mothers, separately, have made strenuous efforts to return them home, spending hundreds of euros, but they are still separated from their little ones.
Castro is 29 years old and has not been with his daughter Mokhtaria Amira for more than seven years.
Before reaching the age of majority, she met her partner, a native of Algeria, and five months later she became pregnant.
In 2013 the father was sentenced in Spain to three years in prison for crimes of robbery with violence and attack against the authority.
It was then that he took the opportunity to steal the little girl, who will now be 10 years old.
He doesn't know anything about her either and the chances of getting her back are gone.
Castro and Ortiz contacted in 2018 through Facebook, but have not met again.
The first finds it very sad to refresh what happened: “I haven't solved anything because of the shitty justice we have in this country.
The truth is that my case has not gone well, nor will it go well.
I think what I can say to Maider is not going to help her case.
It's been seven years and it's painful for me to have to speak again and remember what happened.
I am so sorry".
Ortiz does not throw in the towel.
He has received the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
the Basque Minister of Security, Josu Erkoreka;
the Government delegate in the Basque Country, Denis Itxaso;
and from other authorities.
Mar Robles has asked the Basque Parliament for help and "protection" for her daughter and her granddaughter.
Foreign Affairs ensures that the Consulate General of Spain "is aware" of this case and is "advising and providing consular assistance" to the family.
The Government clarifies that her assistance in Algeria must always take place in accordance with local regulations and that it cannot assume the legal assistance that the mother requires in that country.
The family trusts that diplomatic channels will facilitate Amira's return to Spain.
At the same time, she is still open to the lawsuit in a court in Oran, the only loophole she has left to hold her in her arms again.
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
subscribe
I'm already a subscriber
