motherof3’s blog

My Story: Calrifying a Few Points - al-qaeda, etc. (17)

2008-06-04T11:54:42Z

I've highlighted some of the major points to describe what has happened to me and my children - how I trusted my husband, how he responded by abusing us physically and emotionally, and how he kidnapped the children and has held them hostage in Yem...

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Saying Goodbye (16)

2008-06-04T11:52:49Z

The quest to get my kids home had failed, and I had to return the kids to their father's house in Sanaa. We got a ride and sat through the 7-hour ride back to Sanaa in quiet with heavy hearts. As a mother, I couldn't imagine having to send my kids...

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Screwed by my Own Government - Again (15)

2008-06-04T11:48:14Z

I admitted defeat. I couldn't get my kids out of Yemen and back home to America. Without money for food and water and a place to stay, I had no choice but to take them back to their father's house. But there was no more money for a 7-hour taxi rid...

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Crossing the Red Sea on an Inflatable Boat - part 3 (14)

2008-06-04T11:46:57Z

We arrived at Bab al-Mandeb at 10:30 pm. Upon arrival, I discovered why the taxi company gave us so much trouble about taking us there. There was nothing there. Well, there was one lonely gas station with about 6 men sitting outside it. That was i...

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Crossing the Red Sea - part 2 (13)

2008-05-30T16:03:46Z

On Sept 30, 2007, my friend and I arrived in Yemen with my inflatable boat, ready to get my children, get them across the Red Sea, and take them home - finally. I set out to find a way to get out of the city to the capital where the kids were. I ...

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Crossing the Red Sea on an Inflatable Boat - part 1 (12)

2008-05-30T16:03:02Z

I had spent months in America trying to find some kind of help to bring my kids home to America where they wanted to be - and where they needed to be. After months of trying to reach out and spending thousands of dollars, I realized that there was...

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How Could I Save Them?

2008-05-30T16:02:00Z

There are no words to describe what a mother feels when she knows how badly her children are suffering and yet she can't do anything to help them. I've never believed in the word "can't" in my entire life, and I wasn't about to start now. So, I th...

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My Story: Trying to Get Out

2008-05-30T16:01:17Z

I had arrived in Yemen for the third time on Aug. 9, 2006. During the second week of October, I received an email from my biological father. I found my birth parents in 1990, and my father and I had become close friends. He was the only family I h...

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My Story: Betrayed by My Own Government (11)

2008-05-30T16:00:35Z

After our day-long meeting with the Yemeni and US government officials, Ahmed had agreed to lift the travel ban on me so I could go home to see my dying father, and he also promised to lift the ban on the children and let them return home once I g...

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My Story: Trying to Appease (10)

2008-05-30T15:59:30Z

So, at the end of the first week after arriving in Yemen, I had had enough and told Akmed that I was taking the kids and going home. He got angry (of course) and said that I couldn't leave. He had the plane tickets and wouldn't give them to me. He...

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