Elsa Salama: Jeremy Hunt asks Egypt to help find missing girl

Elsa was four years old when she was taken from her mother

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says Egyptian government ministers have been asked to help find a British girl who went missing more than seven years ago.

Elsa Salama, 12, was taken by her father Tamer Salama while she and her mother were in Egypt.

Mr Hunt told a judge overseeing the case that an official at the British Embassy in Cairo had discussed the case with the Egyptian government.

Elsa is at the centre of a battle between her divorced parents.

The High Court in London heard how former teacher Salam took Elsa from her mother, Naomi Button, in December 2011 while all three were visiting his relatives in Egypt.

She was forced to return to England alone and has not seen Elsa since.

Ms Button, 45, from Leeds, believes Elsa is living with Salama's mother in Cairo.

Naomi Button suspects her daughter is living with Salama's mother in Cairo

Mr Justice Mostyn, who is overseeing proceedings, made public a letter he had received from Mr Hunt during an earlier hearing.

He had asked Mr Hunt for help earlier this year, and said he appreciated the minister's response.

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In the letter, Mr Hunt told the judge a number of "actions" had been taken, including raising the case with the Egyptian justice ministry.

The foreign secretary has also written to his Egyptian counterpart.

He added that a British Embassy official had met Yasser Hashem, the assistant minister of consular affairs, to "see if there was anything that could be done".

Tamer Salama has claimed he does not know exactly where his daughter is living

Salama, who subsequently returned to England without Elsa, was jailed in January 2012 for breaching orders to arrange his daughter's return to England, or to reveal where she was.

But he was released in December 2013 after a judge ruled that keeping him in prison was no longer proportionate or justifiable.

Mr Justice Mostyn told Salama to assist the Egyptian authorities by providing detail of his relatives in the country.