Cesena, 19 June 2024 – “Noemi is quickly getting used to her life as a child again and is taking part in the activities of the summer campshe’s reconnecting with her friends and making new friends.”
Filippo Zanellathe father of Noemi, the 9 and a half year old girl kidnapped by her mother Polish on 21 September 2021, talks about the progress of her daughter who has finally returned to Italy. “Noemi is quickly relearning Italian – says the father – it is one happy little girl and very active. I have so many beautiful photos and videos to prove it. Now he spends his time with grandparents and with me, our goal at the moment is for her to recover these three years of life as a child which unfortunately she was unable to live because she was systematically barred from any relational activity with children of her age. Let’s remember that her mother left her at home alone in the morning while she went to work and in the afternoon she took her to church for 4 or 5 hours to pray.”
Filippo Zanella, although happy to have finally found his daughter, he is also worried. “We’re a little scared about what the relatives on the mother’s side will be able to do – he explains – we don’t know how Noemi’s mother will move. After this story there are many fathers who are asking us for help, many fathers who have seen that, even if sometimes these kidnappings seem hopeless, they can manage to find their children. On June 28th there will be a big demonstration in Rome that we will hold together with the ‘Men victims of violence’ association and we will talk about the issue of child kidnappings. We remind you that there is one kidnapping per day in Italy and the penalties provided are very low. We will also talk about the right to parenthood and discrimination.”
The disappearance by Noemi dates back three years ago and Filippo Zanella, a 47-year-old physiotherapist managed to find his daughter thanks to a mysterious ‘Guardian angel’. The judges, even in Polandthey had entrusted the child to her father, judging illegal the mother’s behavior. For this reason the man had gone to Poland directly to look for her daughter and bring her home to Cesena.
“There is one person – says Filippo Zanella – who I call my guardian angel, but whose I don’t know the name, who sent me an anonymous letter writing the exact address of where my daughter was.” The physiotherapist from Cesena immediately went to the city of Rzesxow which is located on the borders of Poland near Ukraine, where the little girl lived with her mother. Apparently they lived semi-clandestinely and the little girl did not attend school nor was she entrusted to a pediatrician. The municipal administration of Cesena and the Italian consular authorities were also mobilized to resolve the case.
“As soon as I got this news I moved there – says Zanella – and we made a month of observations and stakeouts”. “My daughter was not found thanks to the police – Zanella is keen to point out – when my ex-partner saw me on the morning of June 5th, she ran away together with the little girl. And I suspect that there were spies within the Polish police. Noemi was very agitated and at first she didn’t recognize me. We managed to reach them and, thanks also to my mother’s help, Noemi calmed down. She is now a calm and happy little girl.”
In May 2022 the Polish court had recognized the behavior of Noemi’s mother, who disappeared together with the little girl three years ago, as illegal and, pursuant to the Hague Convention and with a final non-appealable sentence, ordered the mother to bring Noemi back to Italy. In June 2023 the Forlì court declared the parental rights of Noemi’s mother lapsed, prohibiting her from approaching the places frequented by her daughter”.
