by Allan Detrich

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Armed with a laptop computer and a glass of water, Maureen Dabbagh is attempting to orchestrate a miracle of international diplomacy from her kitchen. On Nov. 3, 1992, her ex-husband stole away with their daughter Nadia and took her to Syria, his homeland. Maureen has not seen or spoken to Nadia since. So, for six years and six days, as of Nov. 9 Maureen has tried to get Nadia back.

She has picketed, sued, cajoled. She has hired lawyers, bounty hunters, and charlatans. She has spent $200,000 that she didn't have by raising enormous sums of money and going into debt. She has been featured on the Voice of America radio network and Worldwide Web sites dedicated to solving international child abductions. She has gained the support of the U.S. Senate, which last month last month passed a resolution calling on the U.S. and Syrian governments to do all in their power to reunite Nadia with her mother.

Maureen has connected personally with people all over the planet by sending e-mails and Internet postings from her kitchen laptop computer. One Web site operator claims 10 million people have expressed support for Dabbagh, as her updates ricochet through cyberspace via e-mail forwarding and subscription lists, creating a sort of perpetual motion messaging machine.

Still, no Nadia.

So now, Maureen is going low-tech, and this is where the glass of water comes in. She launched a hunger strike on Oct. 14 - 26 days ago - and she plans to starve unless she gets her daughter back. The only thing she'll swallow is water. So far, she's lost more than 25 pounds. ok for Monday, just over 25 on Friday

Maureen and Mohamad Hisham Dabbagh were married in October 1988 and settled down in Medina, Ohio. It was a rocky relationship from the start, riven by religious and cultural differences that often erupted in battle.

In February 1990, Nadia Alexandra Dabbagh was born. Maureen says the fighting eventually escalated to physical violence, including abuse against Nadia. Maureen gathered up her daughter and left Hisham on their third wedding anniversary Oct. 1991 when Nadia was 19 months old.

"Call it poetic justice, or my ultimate anniversary present to myself," Maureen says. "I had no money, no credit cards, no . . . nothing. Hisham had liquidated all my assets or had everything in his name."

It was 11 p.m. on a cold October night. She recalls Hisham laughing and saying, "You'll be back . . . you have no money and nowhere to go."

Maureen got around to filing for divorce a few months later. And a legal struggle ensued.

Judge Judith Cross ordered Maureen to turn Nadia over to Hisham for unsupervised visits until final custody arrangements could be decided."Although my attorney tried to explain to the judge that he was violent and we were in danger, she would not consent to a hearing . I fought desperately to protect Nadia from Hisham. He repeatedly stated he would take Nadia away to another country and that I would never see her again."

Judge Cross said Nadia, then nearly 3 years old, would have to travel from her home in Ohio to spend one month with her father in Florida.

"I was horrified," Maureen says. "The next day, Nadia was delivered into the hands of her kidnapper. She was taken to Syria. I never saw her again.

"I can remember [shooting] the last photo I took of Nadia . . . . She was in a little red coat, standing in the snow. She looked so sad. She would not smile. Later I saw Schindler's List and saw the little girl in the red coat. I got chills and had to leave the theater." In the Steven Spielberg movie, a girl who looked to be about four years old was captured by Nazi troops as they shot and rounded up Jews in Poland. Her red coat was later seen in a pile of clothes near a concentration camp crematorium.

It is hard to imagine Maureen's last six years. She's had to fall back into and survive, over and over again, the emptiness of failed initiatives that seemed to hold promise.

She's been back and forth to the Middle East. And she's been able to help other parents get their kids back from the region. But not her own. In October 1997, for instance, she traveled with a man who offered to find Nadia and claimed to be president of a Syrian-Arab council in the United States. Maureen gave him money and waited in Lebanon for him to return from Syria with her daughter. She waited a month before going home alone. Again.

"I have spent $200,000 in my recovery efforts. I paid huge amounts of money to Syrians who requested money be deposited into their French bank accounts. Always there was the promise that I would see my child."

Maureen and the State Department believe her former husband Hisham is living in Saudi Arabia at the moment, having been forced to flee Syria after getting into trouble there. So it may be that Nadia is now separated from both her parents and being raised by Hisham's family in a secret location. U.S. government support has been mixed, Maureen says. "Although I had a federal warrant for the arrest of Hisham, the Justice Department refused to issue a 'provisional arrest request,' which allows for a U.S. order to be enforced abroad . . . so my warrant was no good. The U.S. Department of State had my case on file and was pretty good about passing information back and forth to different agencies, but did not seem to care."

Maria Rudensky, a spokeswoman for the State Department, would not comment on Maureen's circumstances, but said, "We provide a variety of services. Welfare and 'whereabout' visits, which are, to check on the child. These are conducted in the city or capital of the country where the child is, or the embassy. Sometimes hotels, or neutral meeting places are used, someplace where both parties feel comfortable."

Maureen says the U.S. embassy in Syria has tried to find Nadia to see how she's doing, but has been rebuffed by the Syrian government, most recently in July. Negotiations are complicated by the fact that Syria has not signed the "Hague treaty," an agreement among 47 countries, including the United States, to cooperate in child custody disputes. At any given time, the State Department deals with about 1,000 cases of international parental kidnapping.

Running high on resolve, but low on alternatives, Dabbagh stopped eating and began a hunger strike Oct. 14. She wrote in her personal journal Oct. 17: "The first three days were the worst . . . The hunger pains continue and headaches plague me on and off throughout the day. I am resolved. "I think of Nadia and I think that whatever I am going through can not possibly compare to the first three days I know she cried uncontrollably for me. What kind of monster could inflict such emotional pain on their own child?"

Dabbagh's hunger strike has not gone unnoticed. It has raised her profile on the Internet and set off a Voice of America public service announcement throughout the Middle East asking anyone with information about Nadia's whereabouts to contact a U.S. embassy. U.S. Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia, where Maureen lives now, sponsored Senate Resolution 293, which passed unanimously Oct. 21: "It is the sense of the Senate that the governments of the United States and Syria immediately locate Nadia and deliver her safely to her mother." The resolution has good intentions, but no binding force, so Maureen continues to fast, hoping to build more public pressure on both governments.

Every day she wakes up and logs onto the Internet to read messages of support e-mailed to her from around the world. Letters arrive daily, too, some addressed to Nadia.

One brought tears to the normally strong-willed Maureen. It came from Margaret McClain, a mother in Jonesboro, Ark. Enclosed was a scribbled red heart drawn by McClain's girl, Heidi Al-Omary, who was kidnapped to Saudi Arabia eighteen months ago.

Maureen walks slower these days, and takes naps in the afternoon if the opportunity presents itself. She continues to provide daycare for two children at her home, preparing them meals as she limits herself to an occasional glass of water. "I bet Gandhi didn't have to cook meals when he was on a hunger strike," she jokes.

At two weeks without eating, Maureen had lost 18 pounds. Her body seemed to be swelling slightly and her sense of smell, especially when it came to food, had shut down.

Writing in her journal, she said "I was told early on not to expect any media until I looked like walking death." On Tuesday, Oct. 27 she wrote, "My train of thought is short and I have to struggle to stay focused. I am weaker and move about slowly. I sure hope that my old body is as strong as my mental will."

Allan Detrich is a photographer for the Block News Alliance, which consists of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade. He has followed Maureen Dabbagh's efforts to find Nadia for two years and has been given access to documents and private journals. Post-Gazette International Editor Greg Victor helped write this story.

STORY 2

The wind rustled through the yellow leaves as Maureen Dabbagh slowly shuffled along the sidewalk in front of the Syrian Embassy. Dabbagh has little strength left as she enters her 20th day of a hunger strike.

It is 1:00 p.m. and the Diplomats inside the Syrian Embassy start to look out the windows of the brick structure on Wyoming Street. "The will soon be having a conference on how to handle me," says Dabbagh, "Then they will call the police." And that they did. Not more than twenty minutes after she arrived three squads showed up, which included six officers.

The Sargent went into the Embassy to talk to the Diplomats, when he returned, he told Dabbagh that "She had the right to be in front of the Embassy, it is your right as a citizen of the United States to be here." A slight smile worked its way across her shriveled lips for the first time in a long while.

As the day progressed people came and went from the embassy hardly paying any attention to Dabbagh except for one man who claimed to be a US Diplomat or worked for the Congress, took a second, looked at Dabbagh's poster and said "Good luck with your daughter, I hope you get her back."

Several Minutes later, a fire engine, ambulance, two police squads, and two secret service agents on bicycles roared up to the Embassy. Someone had called 911 and reported a woman slumped over in front of the Syrian Embassy. After asking Maureen and other bystanders if they had called 911, one of the paramedics speculated "They called us to help get rid of you."

Maureen Dabbagh once again survived another attempt by the Syrian Embassy Diplomats to get rid of her. As the breeze got cooler, and the daylight got dimmer, Dabbagh began to chill and decided her body had endured enough for the day.

One of the things that the paramedics told her rung in her ears, "You should just go home, eat something and take care of yourself." At this point in time that sounded like a pretty good idea to Dabbagh, but for Nadia's sake, she will continue with her fast.

Here is the address of the fund for the mother on the hunger strike, she is down 31 lbs now.

STORY 3

Virginia, Beach, VA - Maureen Dabbagh's cheeks are no longer sunken; she now smiles and laughs since the end of her fast. She has even gained three pounds.

During her fast, she used to use every ounce of energy just to keep her train of thought. Dabbagh now spends her every waking moment focusing on the reaction to her fast. Turning that same reaction into a finely honed weapon. A weapon, which she hopes, will be used to rescue her daughter Nadia.

It has been two weeks since Maureen Dabbagh ended her hunger strike, and what a wild two weeks it has been. Calls, letters and e-mails still continue to pour in.

On November 25th, the Syrian Embassy in Washington DC. sent Maureen Dabbagh a fax from Bassam Sabbagh, Counselor, inviting her to visit Nadia. "Should you like to travel to Syria to visit your daughter...your visa is ready and the Embassy's staff will do their best for making your trip easy and fruitful."

"He (Hisham Dabbagh) is about as secure as the Saudis could make him. I expected that the kid is actually in Saudi Arabia, not Syria," says Tim Hunter, a US Foreign Service Officer, who worked for the US Department of State, and was stationed in Saudi Arabia from 1993-1994. Hunter was locked out of his assignment in Saudi Arabia for whistle blowing on cases concerning abuse of authority occuring in the US Mission. Hunter is currently waiting to be reassigned.

Dabbagh is highly skeptical because of her previous experiences with the Syrians. "I can go there, and they will not be able to locate the address or something like that, it has always happened that way in the past, why should I think differently now."

A recent phone call from the State Department to Maureen has confirmed that Nadia has now been moved to Saudi Arabia with her father Hisham Dabbagh. He is currently employed at Security Forces Hospital in Riyadh.

Several children including Nadia, whose fathers left them behind in other Middle Eastern countries, have been moved to Saudi Arabia in the last week or so, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the State Department.

Security Forces Hospital is a 462-bed facility in downtown Riyadh that provides services for employees of the Ministry of Interior Security Forces (police and their families). They perform about 400 surgery procedures and 95,000 tests per month. These are performed by the Laboratory Services Department, were Hisham Dabbagh currently works.

Meanwhile, the phone in her Va. Beach, VA, kitchen continues to ring off the hook.

"Hello..." says Maureen in a timid voice. "You would not believe all of the calls I have gotten today...and you won't believe what is happening in Nadia's case," exclaims Dabbagh, as the excitement grows in her voice. "They have moved Nadia to Saudi Arabia!"

"The security forces hospital sounds like a non-US facility, and is probably supported by American "private" contractors," says Tim Hunter, a US Foreign Service Officer, who worked for the US Department of State, and was stationed in Saudi Arabia from 1993-1994. Hunter was locked out of his assignment in Saudi Arabia for whistle blowing on cases concerning abuse of authority occuring in the US Mission.. Hunter is currently waiting to be reassigned.

"The Saudi government has a duty to have him deported, as I understand, there are international warrants out for his arrest, etc. The fact that he is where he is and that he gave the child to a terrorist group in Syria suggests that he was involved with the Saudi intelligence apparatus in some way. He has been given a job in the Security Hospital to keep him from being bothered by the US and the mother," speculates Hunter.

"The main reason for the recent movement is that these fathers want to have their children with them for the religious holiday Ramadan.," says Maureen Dabbagh.

"It has been estimated by observers that 2,000-4,000 Americans are held in some sort of illegitimate captivity, according to Tim Hunter. "The real number is a secret which even I am not permitted to divulge. If I were the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia I would visit King Fahd and explain the situation and the need for all the Americans to be released. He could certainly do so, if he were ever asked personally by the US Ambassador. If he were unsuccessful, the President himself could obtain their releases by a phone call."

While Maureen Dabbagh waits for the State Department and other governmental agencies to work on her case. She goes in her own direction in search of Nadia.

Television producers from the German television network ProSeiben, who work for the German version of 20/20, arrived in Virginia Beach on Tuesday. Their reporter saw the Post-Gazette and MSNBC stories on the Internet, and decided to interview Dabbagh, and do their own version of Maureen and Nadia's story for all of Europe to see.

Thursday one could say that Maureen summed up things in a nutshell when she said, "All Hell just broke loose."

The morning began as a depressing day for her, but changed as quickly as it took her to send a fax to the Syrian Embassy, after deciding to take them up in their offer to let her visit Nadia.

Around ten in the morning she sent a fax stating, "I am making plans to come to Syria within the next 7-10 days. I will come to the embassy to get a visa. The US State Department contacted me stating Nadia is no longer in Syria. Please confirm."

Within two hours a diplomatic assistant to the Embassy Counselor was on the phone to Dabbagh. He said that they were "Surprised," that Nadia was not in Syria, according to Dabbagh. "He also wanted to know where the info came from, and they were trying to confirm Nadia's whereabouts as they spoke on the phone. He would also try to get a photo of Nadia before the visit," said Dabbagh.

"I think they are on the up and up, " says Dabbagh, "I have dealt with them for six years. Since their invitation had been made public, I knew they (the Syrians), would not back out. They will make sure I have visitation."

As of deadline Nadia's whereabouts have not been confirmed for sure, but according to Maureen, "If Nadia is in Saudi Arabia, you can bet they are going to call the Saudi Arabia and tell him (Hisham Dabbagh) to cut her vacation short and return her."

The question still remains if Hisham would listen to the Syrian's request to return Nadia, or if he will try to flee to another country. "He will have to deal with the Syrians," says Maureen. "They will not loose face in front of the whole world because of him. I think they will choose to be heroes in front of millions of people if they return Nadia to me."

Maureen sums up the situation in her December 3rd journal entry. "I wait for a reply. I am overwhelmed and greatly distressed...it is like history repeating itself over and over and over...I feel sick. If this information is accurate, the implications are much more far reaching than my being disappointed in not seeing Nadia, it means that my precious child has once again been moved the and stability in her life continues to be disrupted."

Dabbagh Search & Recovery Fund
Princess Anne Bank
699 Independence Blvd.
Virginia Beach, VA 23455
tel: 757-486-9487
routing # 051404985
account # 00802504908