THE SUNDAY MAIL was first alerted to the affair by journalist Arnaud Wajdzik of French regional newspaper Ouest-France, who emailed us an internet link last Thursday to his previous day’s article, entitled: “They are holding our daughters hostage in Cyprus”.
Based on interviews with the parents, the article explained that Marie Chesnel had been forced to flee the conflict in Cameroon in 2003, leaving her two daughters with her sister in the capital Yaounde. Subsequently, she kept in regular contact with them and other family members, and visited Cameroon twice to see them, all the while trying to arrange for her daughters to join her in France.
In 2005, Marie married Rene Chesnel, who was happy to legally recognise the two girls as his own. Rene told the Mail yesterday: “As far as I’m concerned, they’re my daughters. They call me ‘Dad’, and there’s no question for me that they’re my kids.”
Unfortunately, the French authorities raised doubts about the authenticity of the birth certificates submitted as part of the application, and eventually raised doubts about Marie’s identity based on her own birth certificate. Marie was adamant: “I am ready to take a DNA test to prove who I am and my relationship to my kids”.
As confirmed to the Mail by both the Chesnels and their daughters, in February 2009, they decided to use an unofficial route to being reunited with their kids. They contacted a man calling himself Monsignor Côme – widely referred to as “The Bishop” – who assured them in writing that everything done would be above board. He told them that the total cost of tickets, paperwork and his services for sending the two girls to France with an accompanying adult would come to six million CFA francs, roughly €9,150.
After a long delay, on November 13, 2009 the girls set off from Yaounde airport for Paris. Instead, the Chesnels found out that the girls had arrived unaccompanied at Ercan (Tymbou) airport in the north of Cyprus on November 14, having flown via Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Beirut and Istanbul – a 30-hour journey.
Having passed through immigration control by confirming that they were being met and they had the financial means to pay their way – they each had received €400 from their mother – the girls were collected from Ercan airport by an unnamed Cameroonian, who took them to spend the night in a small hotel. The next day, they were met there by another Cameroonian, Nzounda Urbain, who promptly took the girls’ €800 and told them he needed more money to send them to France.
That same night, the Chesnels received the first of many demands for more money from Nzounda, accompanied by threats – both verbally and by SMS text message – against the girls’ safety. One said: “If you don’t send the money we want, you won’t see your daughters again”; another said: “You have woken up a sleeping beast”. The Chesnels have photos of the SMS messages.
In total, the Chesnels paid €20,000 to the traffickers, and only stopped this month when they ran out of cash. At that point, as both parents insisted to the Mail, they finally admitted to themselves that they were victims of people who had no intention – assuming they were able – of sending the girls on to France and were only interested in extorting more money.
They therefore instructed a solicitor, and last Wednesday filed a complaint of “kidnap of minors” with the public prosecutor in Anger, their home town.
“Until then, we had gritted our teeth and told ourselves that our daughters would arrive in France soon”, said Marie. “To begin with, the Bishop was very reassuring, saying it would all be sorted out. Then, when the girls arrived in Cyprus and we found out that the promise of visas and official paperwork was all lies, the threats began. I can’t tell you the kind of manipulation we suffered. All the while, we didn’t dare come to Cyprus because of the threats against our daughter’s lives.”
Marie, a trained nurse, also explained that she was working for a private hospital as a supply replacement on a fixed-term contract. “With all the financial demands, including paying for my son to attend university in Cameroon, I couldn’t afford to take time off work. On my contract, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Besides, if you don’t fulfil a commitment, you may not get a call for another job”, she said. Her husband Rene is a retired postman, who now does voluntary work for an old people’s home and a local hospital.
Asked last Friday morning whether they were aware of a complaint made in France about a case of child-kidnapping in Cyprus, both Police HQ and the local Interpol office told us there was no file here on any such case. Enquiries with the police in the occupied area also drew a blank.
On Friday afternoon, the Mail managed to talk to the Chesnels for the first time. We learned that they had received an SMS text message on Thursday night telling them that the girls were being put out on the street, as there was a chance the apartment where they were staying would be raided by the Immigration Department.
Marie contacted a Cameroonian friend living in the United States whose daughter is studying in Nicosia, and arranged for the student to pick up Babette and Muriel and take them to the French Embassy. When they got there at 2.00am on Friday morning, nobody answered, so the student took the girls back to her flat. The plan was then to wait until Monday morning, and try again.
Rene put us in touch with Amely-James Koh Bella, an NGO specialist in protecting minors and combating child trafficking who is currently collaborating with the French Interior Ministry. She told us on Friday afternoon that the absolute priority at that point was to ensure the safety of the two girls, which could only be guaranteed by getting them under the protection of either the French Embassy or the Cypriot authorities.
Asked whether that would result in the parents getting into trouble with the law and the girls being sent back to Cameroon, Koh Bella said: “Let’s be clear: we’re dealing with a mother in distress, trying to get her kids back, not some paedophile in Belgium. A mother who had to deal with all sorts of legal and bureaucratic barriers, and for whatever reason chose to follow an alternative path that was not legal. She can answer for that later. Right now, that’s not the most important thing. Making sure the kids are safe is.”
On this basis, the Mail contacted the French Embassy to ask if they could take the girls in charge. The reply was that they would need instructions from Paris, which could not be received before Monday. The Chesnels then agreed to the Mail’s suggestion to involve the NGO KISA (Action for Equality, Support, Anti-racism), and told us where we could collect the girls.
After KISA Director Doros Polycarpou spoke with Babette and Muriel at the Cyprus Mail office, they were collected just before 11pm by a representative of the Welfare Office, who had arranged places for them at a protected refuge for children. Before going to the refuge, the girls were taken to Paphos Gate police station to establish formally that they needed to be taken into protective custody by the Cypriot authorities.
If Interpol decides not to treat the case as one of kidnapping, then the Cypriot and French governments will each have to decide in turn how to treat the girls’ presence in Cyprus and their wish to be able to live with their parents in France.
Babette and Muriel said they do not want to apply for asylum in Cyprus: they did not intend to come here, nor do they want to stay here. They want to be reunited with their parents in France. Besides, the whole process for being granted asylum can take two years, posing the question of what two unprotected minors would do here in the meantime. If the application were to be refused, the Cypriot government would be responsible for transferring the girls back to Cameroon, having first ensured that there is someone there willing and able to take care of them.
The Mail has been told that there is no-one able to take care of the girls in Cameroon. Babette said that all four grandparents are dead, and her elder brother is in his second year of university in Cameroon. Her mother’s brother (who was taking care of the girls) died in 2008, and a cousin who took over their care found it increasingly difficult as he was training to be a policeman.
Tomorrow, KISA’s Polycarpou will be contacting Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis on the girls’ behalf.
Polycarpou said that in such cases, the Minister has the power to order the issuing of temporary visas on humanitarian grounds. This would bypass the whole asylum issue altogether, allowing Babette and Muriel to apply for permission to go to France.
The girls’ parents say they hope to be able to fly to Cyprus in the coming week to be reunited with their daughters.
