She was already doing return trips between Algiers and Brussels for several months with a visa valid for two years, without any problem. Her two daughters were going to school in Brussels. One day, when back to Brussels airport, a policeman thought her visa was “dubious”.
They contacted the Foreigners Office, she was brought to the Caricole closed centre in view of a deportation to Morocco because the Office deemed there were good reasons to doubt about the real intentions of the woman. The people with whom she had left her children in Brussels were no longer available to take care of them, so the alert was given because the children were left alone, their mother being retained in a closed centre.
They rang the general delegate to Children’s Rights who is managing the youth services. Since it was on a Friday afternoon, the answer given was “bring them to the police, they will be safe there!”. The mother had absolutely no trust in this solution and she wanted to avoid that the children were traumatised, hence ‘friends’ of her proposed to welcome and take care of the children before a better solution could be found.
An urgent appeal to the CCE to try and suspend the deportation of the mother was refused and the Foreigners Office decided to expel her, well aware of the fact that both children have been separated from their mother and are somewhere left alone.
This is the situation on 4th of December. Mother in closed centre, two children extremely traumatised by the separation from their mum, and a “deportation” foreseen only for the mother!
Calls are being made towards all the authorities which guarantee the well-being of children and towards the Foreigners Office, but they remain unanswered…
