The government has launched fresh action to have a young fostered girl returned to Malta after a court declared that the way she was taken out of Malta by her biological mother constituted an abduction.

The case caused a public outcry last October and a public vigil was held as the foster parents appealed for information about the seven-year-old, who was under a protection order. She had lived with them since she was six months old.

"We are so worried. We want to make sure she is all right and that she has everything she needs. She suffers from asthma… All her things – her clothes, her toys – are still here at our home. I might not be her birth mother but I worry like any other mother,” the foster parent had told Times of Malta.

“My father spent the last days of his life insisting: find that girl. "She was very close to my parents, who lived with us. She called him nannu. He died with a heavy heart knowing she is still missing.” 

At the end of October Times of Malta reported that the girl had been traced to a European country, although she had yet to be found. 

She was believed to have been taken there by her biological mother, who had unsupervised access to her for a number of hours on Saturdays and Sundays, at the girl's request as part of a reintegration plan. 

The Social Welfare Ministry said on Thursday that the Family Court had upheld its request for the case to be declared a child abduction.  

Madam Justice Jacqueline Padovani Grima declared that the child had been taken out of Malta illegally in breach of Maltese law and international conventions. She ordered the child's immediate return to Malta, once traced.   

The ministry said the court's decision had been communicated to other countries  so that it could be enforced when the child is found.