Children living in Dutch embassy returned to mother

TWO children who lived in the Dutch embassy in Damascus for nearly six months during a custody battle between their parents were reunited with their mother yesterday.

Dutch courts had awarded custody to the mother, Janneke Schoonhoven, but the children travelled to Syria with their father, Hisham al-Hafez, during a vacation in 2004 and never came back. Schoonhoven filed kidnapping charges against al-Hafez.

According to Schoonhoven, the pair — Ammar, 13, and Sara, 11 — slipped away from their father and took a cab to the embassy in June 2006, hoping to be able to return to the Netherlands.

Al-Hafez said they had been kidnapped by embassy staff, and insisted they be released into his care. Syrian law favours the father in custody cases, and a stalemate ensued as the children stayed or were kept within embassy confines to avoid falling into his hands.

But the Dutch governmnent said al-Hafez finally agreed to their return.

“We can finally embrace them safely back in our arms, after two-and-a-half years,” Schoonhoven told Dutch broadcaster NOS by telephone. “And before Christmas.”

Al-Hafez told the AP by phone in Damascus that Ammar and Sara left after an agreement with the Dutch foreign ministry under which all suits filed against him were dropped by the Dutch government.

“I have committed no crime, and now I have the right to visit them and vice versa whenever we want,” he said.