«Hor fear of losing my little girl. I’m afraid of ending up in prison in Egypt. I don’t know how to ask for help anymore.” The woman who says these words on a video that appeared on Instagram Her name is Nessy Guerrais thirty-four years old, has a three-year-old girl and is from Sanremo. She lives in Egypt, or rather, she is forced to stay there because an Egyptian court has just sentenced heron appeal, to six months in prison. The crime? Adultery. Yes, adultery. A a crime that has not existed in Italy since 1969. Her ex-husband, Tamer Hamouda, an Italian-Egyptian citizen, reported her.
Nessy Guerra, a mother and child stranded in Egypt
There story of Nessy Guerra it begins like many stories that then become silent tragedies: a love, a marriage, a foreign country. She falls in love and marries Tamer Hamoudaan Italian-Egyptian citizen, and a daughter is born from the relationship. Then something breaks and she tries to rebuild her life. But Hamouda reports her to the Egyptian authorities for adulterya crime still foreseen by the local penal code.
A law light years away
The first degree issues a sentence in February. Now the appeal, instead of overturning it, confirms it. In the meantime, Egyptian judges have imposed an expatriation ban on the little girlwhich prevents her from leaving the country without the consent of both parents. And, of course, the father doesn’t give it. The woman and her daughter are, in fact, trapped.
The lawyer: «This man believes he is Jesus Christ»
Following the case in Italy is the lawyer Agata Armanetti, who doesn’t mince words. He says that during a hearing, Hamouda would have declared in court that he was Jesus Christ, who came to Earth to punish. Not a minor detail given that the Egyptian justice system could entrust the little girl to him, in the event that Nessy Guerra actually ends up in prison. «The problem is not just that a woman will go to prison. The problem is that this three-year-old girl risks falling into the hands of such a man».
Having left Sanremo for love, Nessy Guerra now finds herself trapped in a judicial labyrinth in Cairo. (Facebook photo)
We have to do it quickly
The lawyer is also clear on the role of the Italian State: the authorities should have intervened soonermore decisively, because the woman is an Italian citizen, because she has suffered violence and because adultery in her country of origin is not a crime. Yet there it was, condemned by a foreign court for something that wouldn’t even have a legal name in his home. «An act of total inhumanity, against human rights» says Armanetti.
The Farnesina is there
There Farnesina has made it known that it has been following the case “with the utmost attention” for monthsthrough the embassy in Cairo and the consular network. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani would have raised the case directly with his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, asking that the rights of women and girls be respected. Also on the field are the consul Giulia De Nardis and the honorary consulate of Hurghada who are doing what they can, and the lawyer Armanetti recognizes their commitment. There is a but, however.
But their hands are tied
The problem is that the possibilities, through diplomatic and consular channels, have a precise limit. They are bound by administrative rules that cannot be circumvented with good will. To put Nessy Guerra and her daughter on a state flight, in fact, which at this moment seems the only concrete way, we would need a decision that can only come from a minister or the Prime Minister. And that decision, until now, has not arrived.
The voice of Nessy Guerra
The words that Nessy entrusted to Instagram are those of an exhausted woman. He says he has made “hundreds of appeals”that he had only tried to escape from that man with his daughter, to protect her. And to hope, again, that someone with the power to act actually does so. There is no anger in the video, or at least you can’t see it. There is only tiredness, and fear. The kind of fear you feel when you sense that the system can’t get to where you are.
A race against time to return home
It’s hard not to wonder how that is possible in 2025 an Italian woman will be convicted of adultery abroad. Yet it happens. Today Nessy Guerra lives with bated breath. It’s no longer just a legal battle, but a challenge against time and against the rigidity of a system. The ending of this story has not yet been written, but the hope is that international justice will be able to force the hand of a system that it transformed an Italian citizen into a bureaucratic hostage.