If you took him, we forgive you, Kouakou family says
Missing 10-year-old Ariel Kouakou’s family forgives possible abductor
More than four months after their son disappeared, Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou’s parents sat down together last week to pray and share their thoughts on what happened to their child.
Still convinced Ariel was abducted and is alive somewhere, they decided to write an open letter to the person they believe took their boy near a north-end Montreal park in March.
In the letter, titled “the power of hope and forgiveness,” the family describes how they’re ready to forgive the person if they come forward and would even welcome them into their lives.
“We’re trying to look at this in a positive way,” said the missing boy’s father, Kouadio Frédéric Kouakou, on Tuesday. “For someone to abduct a child, it’s because they’re missing something, either affection or a child’s presence in their life.”
Montreal police suspect 10-yearold Ariel drowned in the Rivièredes-Prairies after entering a park that borders the water, but Kouakou has repeatedly rejected the idea. He believes someone has his child.
“God has a mission of love for the person who is with Ariel,” Kouakou writes in the letter. “Let’s start giving love to this person and we will see that this person will surprise us beyond our expectations.”
The letter describes the different emotions the family’s been living through for the last four months. Adding to the anguish, Kouakou writes, is the “pain of the unknown and questions without answers.”
But the family is focused on remaining resilient and hoping their “champion Ariel” will return one day, the letter says. They’re now willing to move on to the next stage of the process: forgiveness.
“We are ready and committed to forgive (…) this person who has been living with Ariel for more than four months already,” the letter says. “We have no room for hatred in our hearts. We are even ready to share our lives with this person.”
Ariel was last seen on March 12 while entering Parc des Bateliers, which parallels the Rivière-desPrairies in north-end Montreal. Surveillance cameras have images of him entering the park, but not leaving it.
The boy’s disappearance captured the city’s attention, with friends and family leading volunteer searches and flooding the city with posters bearing his picture. Montreal police conducted daily searches of the river, breaking through the ice to look for Ariel or any of his belongings. Nothing has been found.
On Tuesday, Montreal police spokesperson Ian Lafrenière said the force isn’t excluding any possible outcomes but remains convinced Ariel most likely fell into the water.
“We’re still doing a criminal investigation because we’re not taking any chances,” Lafrenière said, “but for the moment the most probable cause would be a very sad accident.”
The Missing Children’s Network, which has helped the family since March, still receives donations, phone calls and notes about the case on a near-daily basis.
The network’s executive director, Pina Arcamone, said she read and was touched by the family’s letter.
Each family of a missing child goes on its own personal journey, Arcamone said, searching for their own ways of coping with the circumstances. The Kouakou family has been using its faith as an anchor while trying to keep their hope alive.
“Right now, people are leaving on holidays or summer vacations, but this family’s life has been on hold since March,” Arcamone said. “They need answers. They ’re not motivated by revenge or vengeance. They don’t harbour any hatred. All they want is their son back.”