A view of Marrakesh

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January 10, 2020 - Seized in Morocco after agreeing to move to the African country for a marriage of convenience, a 47-year-old woman of Sardinian origin was freed after the intervention of the International Police Cooperation Service, which ended an segregation made of deprivations and violence, during which the woman also broke her legs during a desperate escape attempt. Eventually the man was arrested, while she will return to Italy soon, as soon as her health conditions allow.

The woman, according to the police, had been persuaded by a Moroccan friend to accept a marriage of convenience with her nephew, a 27-year-old young man. The act would have earned her 5 thousand euros and would have allowed the man to obtain a valid title to live in Italy. She had therefore packed her bags and had gone to Morocco last November, with the intention of returning immediately after the paperwork. Bureaucratic difficulties related to the divorce with her previous husband, also of Moroccan nationality, had made her change her mind and had thus decided to return to Italy. However, she soon realized that the promised spouse would not allow it. The young man, in fact, with the complicity of his mother and sister, kidnapped her, keeping her segregated in a house with bars on the windows, in a village about twenty kilometers from Marrakesh, forced to feed only on milk and biscuits.

The woman, who had managed to keep her cell phone well hidden, was prevented from keeping in touch with the family even if, in the rare telephone messages, she managed to leak her suffering so much that, during a video call, a sister she is aware of the state of prostration and fear experienced by the woman, tired and wounded. Suspicious and worried, any attempt to get in touch with the joint again was unsuccessful, the family members decided to file a complaint with the Sassari Police Headquarters which immediately activated Scip, the International Police Cooperation Service. The investigations have ascertained the effective segregation of the woman who, taking advantage of the momentary absence of her torturers, had escaped to prison on the third floor terrace of the building, launching herself with a fall that had caused her to fracture her legs in addition to the injury. of some vertebrae. Found by the man, she had been brought home, segregated again without health care.

The research initiated by the SCIP with the operational support of the security expert stationed in Rabat, made it possible to trace and save the woman. Now she is hospitalized at a local health facility pending doctors to agree to her return to Italy. The man has been arrested.