'I will bring my children home': Sally Faulkner pens emotional open letter
The determined mother at the centre of the botched child recovery operation in Lebanon has written an open letter vowing that she will not give up her fight for her children.
Sally Faulker, a Brisbane mother of two, spent two weeks detained in a Beirut prison after recovery agents snatched her five-year old daughter Lahela and three-year-old son Noah from the care of their father.
In exchange for her freedom, Ms Faulkner was forced to give up the custodial rights of her children, leaving them in the care of their dad, Ali Elamine.
But she said one failure wouldn’t stop her fighting for her kids.
“My fight will carry on long after the media coverage is gone and I guarantee you one thing. I will bring my children home and they will know that both Mummy and Daddy love them, because both parents are important and parental alienation is child abuse,” she wrote in an open letter published by Mammamia.
Ms Faulkner wrote of her last conversation with her children before she left Beirut.
“Mummy is it just a holiday with daddy, and we come back to you very soon?” Lahela had asked her.
“Yes sweetie it’s just a fun holiday with daddy and mummy will come and bring you both home very soon,” was her reply.
“But what followed was hell on earth,” she wrote.
”Mummy I want to come back but daddy won’t let me," her daughter told her.
Ms Faulkner said this had been the toughest moment of her life.
“To be honest it has been the hardest struggle of my entire life! I struggled to keep my heavy heart above my drowning tears. But one thing I want to make clear: I am not a victim and neither is their father.
“I failed once. So What?
“Failures can be expected, but I will never accept that I cannot keep my promise to my children.”
Ms Faulkner said that while discussing the conditions of her release with Mr Elamine, he had promised she would be allowed to visit their children.
But, now that she is back in Australia, she has been unable to contact him.
A source close to the family said Mr Elamine had stopped his children from contacting their mother.
"No Skype, no photos, blocked on whatsapp and (Mr Elamine) is not answering phone calls from her," they told AAP.
Ms Faulkner wrote: “I took a decision to trust their father and he took advantage but I still have fight.”
She is inviting the public to write letters with their perspective of the situation so she can show her children “how hard I fought and that their mummy never, EVER gave them up of wanted this.”
