Foreign Minister Murray McCully has declined to provide an update on the case of a Northland mother fighting to get custody of her children in Algeria.
Mihi Puriri hasn't seen her children - daughters Iman, 5, and Assiya, 2, and son Zakaria, 1 - for more than four months after her estranged husband, former boxer Mohamed Azzaoui, 36, took them from her.
Ms Puriri 33, went to Algeria last August with Mr Azzaoui, her husband of more than 10 years, and their children, because he said his father was gravely ill.
However, she said her husband destroyed the family passports on arrival, and that he held her and the children captive in a freezing apartment in his hometown of Mostaganem.
The Foreign Affairs Minister travelled to the Middle East on May 4 for a ministerial summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) in Egypt but would not even confirm whether Ms Puriri's case came up for discussion.