Majorcan battles to get daughter back from Cuba

While the battle over the little Cuban boy Elian has been grabbing the world headlines, for the past three years Majorcan Pedro Amengual Mateu has been fighting his own battle to have his daughter returned to her home in Bunyola from Cuba - but he has all but given up hope of Klara coming back to the island. The ordeal started some years ago when Mateu went to Cuba and fell in love with Marbelys, who accepted his invitation to return to Majorca, get married and live a better life. The couple married in Majorca and a few months later Klara was born. Everything continued fine for the next two years, but then the relationship started to deteriorate, Marbelys left home and filed for separation. A Palma judge approved the separation but awarded custody to Mateu, giving the mother visiting rights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and every other weekend. But as soon as she could, the mother left the island and returned to Cuba taking her daughter with her. Since that day, neither mother nor daughter have returned to Majorca and Mateu fears that as time passes Klara will hardly remember who her father is. “It's extremely tough what I'm having to go through, I feel terrible,” Mateu said yesterday. He admits, through the tears, that he did not even know where to start the search for his daughter. He reported her disappearance to the police, but after having received no news from the authorities, decided to go to Cuba himself and found his daughter, who immediately knew who he was and called him “papa.”