At night, as she sleeps, her seven-year-old son haunts her dreams. ‘He’s always there, with the long dark curls he had when he was little,’ says Ranem Elkhalidi, 25. ‘His hair is shorter now, but when he comes at night, that’s how I see him.’
What torments her is that she did not say she loved him when she last saw him. She didn’t even say goodbye. When Ranem dropped Ibrahim at his primary school in Frodsham, Cheshire, on Friday, November 11 last year, she dashed off to tell his teacher that his father would be picking him up.
‘I didn’t even give him a hug,’ she says through tears.
On Monday morning, at home in Helsby, she received a call from his school saying her son had not turned up for lessons. ‘I asked if they had telephoned his father. They said his phone was out of service.’
Frantic – and certain her ex-husband Hamzah had abducted their child to take him to his native Saudi Arabia – Ranem rang the police, who promised to investigate. ‘I told them to go straight to the airport. I felt so helpless as I knew he had gone, and every hour felt like a nightmare,’ she recalls.
Ranem Elkhalidi’s (left) ex-husband Hamzah abducted her seven-year-old son Ibrahim (right) in November last year
The last time she saw little Ibrahim she didn’t even say goodbye – dashing off to tell his teacher
Eight months on, Ranem’s desolation is such that she cannot even bear to go into her son’s bedroom with its moneybox, filled with pounds to reward good behaviour, and lightbox reading ‘Love you to the moon and back’
‘I cried all day, trying to call Hamzah, but he had blocked my number.’
The following day, the police confirmed her worst fears: her ex had taken their son and flown out of the country 72 hours earlier.
‘There was a part of me trying to work out what I could have done differently – should I have put a recording device in his bag, to discover what his father was thinking? But I know I never could have stopped him if this is what he intended to do. I am trying not to be angry with myself.’
Eight months on, Ranem’s desolation is such that she cannot even bear to go into her son’s bedroom with its moneybox, filled with pounds to reward good behaviour, and lightbox reading ‘Love you to the moon and back’.
‘I can’t go in,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s too painful, too hard.’
What angers her is that her plight was foreseeable and preventable. Hamzah picked Ibrahim up from school and flew with him to his native Saudi Arabia despite the fact there was a court order in place forbidding him to do just that.
Since they left, Ibrahim’s desperate mother has not had any contact with him and does not even know where he is living. It is, as she puts it, ‘every mother’s worst nightmare’.
What’s more, it is a nightmare with no end in sight: with no extradition treaty between the UK and Saudi Arabia, Ranem knows her chances of being reunited with her son are bleak.
Hamzah picked Ibrahim up from school and flew with him to his native Saudi Arabia despite the fact there was a court order in place forbidding him to do just that
When Ibrahim (pictured aged 1 on his birthday) comes to Ranem in her dreams, she says he has the long dark curls he had when he was little
It is a nightmare with no end in sight: with no extradition treaty between the UK and Saudi Arabia, Ranem (pictured with her son’s favourite cuddly toy) knows her chances of being reunited with her son are bleak
None of this, of course, has stopped Ranem doing everything she can to bring her son – who speaks only English, not Arabic – back home.
‘I will do whatever it takes,’ she told the Mail yesterday. ‘Every mother would do the same. England is Ibrahim’s home. He was born here, grew up here. He has never been to Saudi Arabia before. He doesn’t know what it looks like there, he doesn’t speak the language. He’s without me, without his friends, in a place that he doesn’t know. I think about him every hour of the day, how frightened and lost he must be.’
Those emotions are also etched her face when we speak in London. Earlier this month, she travelled down for a meeting with the Foreign Office to plead her case with the help of her constituency MP Mike Amesbury, who has said he will do everything in his power to help her.
Petite and pretty, the strain of Ranem’s ongoing battle is nonetheless clear, and she confides that she has been taking anti-depressants to try and cope. ‘I think about him all the time – I have nightmares every night where he’s outside but I can’t reach him and I wake up crying,’ she says.
It is little comfort that she is not alone. In 2016-2017, the most recent year for which complete figures are available, police in England and Wales recorded more than 200 offences of parental child abduction, with research by charity Action Against Abduction suggesting nearly two thirds of cases recorded by police involving the child being taken abroad. Ibrahim is the fifth child to be abducted from the UK and taken to Saudi Arabia in the last year.
Ranem’s case is also complicated by family circumstances: she too was born in Saudi Arabia and Hamzah – who at 33 is eight years her senior – is her cousin.
Their union was arranged between their families when she was just 15, and her own family have turned against her since she chose to divorce.
Back in 2014, however, she recalls only excitement at her imminent marriage, even if it was not a love match. Hamzah, who worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia, had a student visa to study computer science at Liverpool University and was going to bring his new bride with him.
Ranem is worried her son is feeling ‘frightened and lost’ in a country he doesn’t know, and without his mother and his friends
Earlier this month, Ranem travelled down for a meeting with the Foreign Office to plead her case with the help of her constituency MP Mike Amesbury (left), who has said he will do everything in his power to help her
She told the Mail she will do whatever it takes to get her son home to England from Saudi Arabia
The newlyweds arrived in late 2014 and Ranem – who recalls being so excited about living in England but shocked by the chilly British winter – was granted residence on the basis of her husband’s visa.
On arrival, she opted to study English at a local college, but within two years, aged just 17, she was pregnant.
Ibrahim arrived on March 18, 2016 – three days after his mother’s 18th birthday – and Ranem beams as she recalls falling instantly in love with her son.
‘He was just so cute,’ she smiles. ‘I took so many videos of him, and I couldn’t stop looking at him.’
She smiles too, as she recalls how her son would not sleep until she sang to him, or her battle to get him to sleep in his own cot, and not her bed.
‘I remember the midwife telling me off, saying he needed to sleep separately. But he was just so lovely, such a happy baby,’ she says.
Her marriage was not quite so content: Hamzah did not like the restrictions of fatherhood.
‘He was a controlling person, and he was annoyed by fatherhood and by the loss of freedom,’ she says. ‘It irritated him that we did not have family nearby we could leave Ibrahim with. Even when I was pregnant he never showed he was excited.’
Ibrahim was born on March 18, 2016 – three days after his mother’s 18th birthday – and Ranem says she instantly fell in love with her son
But while she desperately loved her son, Ranem’s marriage was not quite so content: Hamzah did not like the restrictions of fatherhood
In 2017, with her union already on shaky ground, Ranem applied for refugee status here, aware that her papers were dependent on those of her husband – but now she cannot leave the country after handing over her passport
In 2017, with her union already on shaky ground, Ranem applied for refugee status here, aware that her papers were dependent on those of her husband.
That decision would reverberate down the years: as part of her application, Ranem handed over her passport and was given English travel documents instead, meaning she cannot leave the country.
This was all ahead of her though: in those early years, Ranem was enchanted to be a mum. ‘I was so young, and learning as I went along, but it was exciting,’ she recalls. ‘I took him to a private nursery so he would speak English. He loved it. He was a sociable boy and as soon as he met new children he liked to play with them.’
Her eyes grow moist as she recalls how much he loved his toy cars and monster trucks as well as football. ‘He loved playing and went to a little club in Warrington,’ she says.
But by 2021, with Ibrahim now five, the marital relationship had deteriorated, and in summer that year Ranem said she wanted a divorce.
‘I said I don’t want to continue together – and that’s when he became nasty,’ she says quietly. ‘I tried to stay but after one month I couldn’t take any more and I left.’
Ranem used the money from her own student loan – given to fund her psychology and nutrition course at Liverpool Hope university – to rent her own place in Warrington, but says she was adamant that she would share access to her son.
‘I told Hamzah he could see him regularly. But he was so angry I had left,’ she says tearfully. ‘One of the first things he did was to cut off Ibrahim’s long curls as he knew how much I loved them,’ she says.
By 2021, when Ibrahim was five, the marital relationship had deteriorated and in summer that year Ranem said she wanted a divorce
When she left Hamzah cut off Ibrahim’s long curls because he knew how much she loved them
Despite this rancour, Ranem says she worked hard to try and ensure that Ibrahim saw his father regularly, although over time became concerned by what she calls ‘brainwashing’.
‘One time I went to pick him up from Hamzah’s and he wouldn’t open the door,’ she recalls. ‘I could hear him saying to Ibrahim, ‘don’t worry the police are going to come and get your mum’. Ibrahim was scared, I was talking to him through the door trying to reassure him.’
Ibrahim would also tell her that his father repeatedly told him that one day it would ‘just be you and me’.
By early last year, relations had become more toxic, with Hamzah choosing to fight for full custody. ‘I tried to show the judge in the case that it was unnecessary, that I was happy to give him equal access,’ she recalls. ‘I also said I worried that he would try and take him to Saudi Arabia.’
Ranem was certainly concerned enough to make a request to the Saudi embassy that they not issue her son a passport, as well as seeking a court order preventing him from taking her son out of the country.
That order – known as a ‘prohibited steps’ order, was granted in Liverpool Family Court on November 3, 2022.
Just nine days later, Hamzah broke the terms, flying with Ibrahim from Manchester Airport to the Saudi port city of Jeddah. He had obtained travel documentation for his son from the Saudi embassy. ‘It is a big question for me, despite the court order, why he was allowed out of the country,’ she says. ‘That is a failure somewhere.’
What she has tried to do is fight – a fight that has proved horribly futile so far. While several court orders have been issued demanding that Hamzah return his son to the UK, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest on child abduction charges, the reality is that the legal system has no jurisdiction over someone who is a Saudi national now he is outside our borders.
Early last year, the pair’s relations had become more toxic, and Hamzah choosing to fight Ranem for full custody
But Ranem says the Foreign Office still say there is nothing they can do – and her last hope is that the Home Office may intervene
Moreover, despite being born and only ever having lived in the UK, Ibrahim’s refugee status means he is ineligible for consular assistance.
It is the reason Ranem travelled to London for her meeting with the Foreign Office, as part of a desperate bid to see if they could issue her son with a British passport.
It was to no avail. ‘They said there was nothing they can do,’ she says, her voice cracking.
Her hope now is that the Home Office may intervene – a desire shared by Mr Amesbury, who last month raised Ranem’s plight in the Commons with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
‘The situation is challenging given there’s no legal arrangement with the Saudi government, so it is a case of applying diplomatic pressure,’ he told the Mail. ‘We have strong ties with the Saudi government and it’s about trying to assert that influence.
‘The perception by the Saudi government is that he [Ibrahim] is a Saudi citizen, but he’s a Mancunian and as British as I am – and ultimately my job as a constituency MP is to see a boy who was born in the same city as me, and the same hospital as my own son, brought home to his mum.’
Whatever happens there is no question that Ranem will ever give up. How could she, when not a minute goes by when she does not think of her son, thousands of miles away?
‘I will do everything I can to bring Ibrahim back to where he should be,’ she says. ‘And that is here with me in the country that is his home.’