Disappearance of Rahma el-Dennaoui

Rahma el-Dennaoui is a Lebanese Australian girl who went missing on 10 November 2005. She was last seen in the bedroom of her home in Lurnea, Sydney, Australia, early that morning, where the 19-month-old girl and her siblings slept. Despite a police search and appeals to the general public, no trace of the little girl has yet been found. Background: Rahma was born to Hosayn El-Dennaoui, a migrant from Iaal, Lebanon, and Alyaa, from the nearby village of Dayranbouh. Rahma was between two of her sisters on a double bed under the window. She had trouble sleeping in the heat and her father got up and went to check on her at 2 am. When he returned at 8 am, she was gone. Rahma had not been walking long, and it is nearly a kilometre from the el-Dennaoui home to any bushland, making a toddler's journey there unlikely. There was a rip in the fly-screen covering the window above her bed, and this opening was large enough for Rahma to fit through. Other sources say the screen was cut, not torn. Sniffer dogs found no trace of the little girl, and police are now treating the disappearance as an abduction, although no motive was known. Reward: In May 2007, New Idea magazine offered a $20,000 (AUS) reward for information on what happened to Rahma. The magazine's editor-in-chief Robyn Foster says it was the similarities between Rahma and the highly publicised case of Madeleine McCann that sparked her interest in the case.