‘THECHILDRENNEED THEIRMOTHER’
DAVID TUCKER MEETS HEARTBROKEN MUM LOUISE ROCHE WHOSE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO PAKISTAN BY HER ESTRANGED HUSBAND
A DISTRAUGHT Wexford mum has appealed to her estranged husband to return their young children he took to Pakistan after failing to return them to her following an access visit granted by the courts.
‘ The children need their mother, they’re babies... they will be traumatised, wondering where their mother is,’ said heartbroken Louise Roche, who lives in Bridgetown. She said her younger child Muhammad always wanted to be in her arms.
Her estranged husband Hammad Tufail is believed to have fled to Pakistan with the couple’s children, Abdullah, aged two and half, and Muhammad, aged 14 months, after taking them to Dublin for a weekend visit.
Louise, aged 29, believes the children could be with Hammad in his home-city of Peshawar, although she has heard nothing of them since they disappeared more than a month ago and his family maintains they have seen nothing of him or them.
The uncertainty is turning her life into a living hell.
‘It has been very difficult for me to cope every day. The first month was like hell...it still is hell, a nightmare,’ Louise told this newspaper at her modest terrace home, a mattress and blankets moved down to the front room to help her keep warm in front of a coal fire, heaps of ashes bearing mute testimony to long lonely nights and days waiting for news, any news.
It isn’t lit and the house is bone-chillingly cold as she speaks of her beloved children and her hopes to be reunited with them.
She said she would travel to Pakistan tomorrow if she could see track down her children, but given the dangers of travelling as a woman alone in a hugely-conservative Moslem society in the Pakistan Tribal Belt bordering Afghanistan, Louise is understandably cautious about her chances and would need significant resources to make such a trip.
‘As a woman I would need as escort, a bodyguard of some kind, a translator. People who think I could just hop on a plane and bring them back don’t understand the situation,’ she said, ‘ but I’d go tomorrow if I could, if I could afford it.’
Her home in full of pictures of Abdullah and Muhammad. Their toys adorn the mantelpiece, a table, any free space.
Both Abdullah and Muhammad were born in Ireland and are Irish nationals, however, Louise thinks her former husband obtained Pakistani travel documents which enabled him to remove them from Ireland and to fly to Pakstan via Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf.
Louise says Abdullah is very cheeky and hardy boy.
‘He is very strong and tough and extremely intelligent. He is hyper and fun loving and always wants to play. He loves to be the centre of attention.
‘Muhammad is sensitive and cries easily. He always wants to be held and cuddled and shown affection. He always wants to be in my arms. He loves his older brother to bits and even though Abdullah bullies him and doesn’t like to share - he always watches out for his little brother, no matter what. They really have two very unique personalities, ‘ she said.
She had been married to Hammad for 10 years, the couple living in Dublin prior to their separation last year when she returned to her home in south Wexford, where she has been living since.
Various fundraising campaigns are under way to help Louise with her legal fight to get her tresured children returned. Bridgetown Womens Shed got the campaign under way over the weekend with a street collection in the village and a GoFundMe page has been launched in an effort to raise some €20,000.
‘ The support I’m getting is unbelievable and I am very grateful,’ said Louise.
Last month, Louise tabled documents at Wexford District Court seeking the return of her children, however, when gardai went to the address in Dublin where her husband had been living they discovered that he and the children had left the country on October 15.
Judge Gerard Houghton approved arrangements to send an email to Louise’s estranged husband in Pakistan of an order for the return of the children, however, there was no response or to a text of the order to a phone number registered to her husband’s father in Peshawar.
Louise said the Department of Foreign Affairs has asked the Pakistan Embassy to intercede on her behalf and things are now moving, and she’s more hopeful than she was about finding them, although she isn’t even sure that the children and her estranged husband are still in Peshawar.
‘I got a translator to call his father and he was crying down the phone line, claiming he didn’t know where the children are, but I’m not sure I believe him,’ she said.
Asked what she would say to Hammad if she could speak directly to him, Louise said:
‘I’d tell him that even if he doesn’t want to come back, he should send the children home to me..’ they’re babies.’
PEOPLE WHO THINK I COULD JUST HOP ON A PLANE AND BRING THEM BACK DON’T UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION...BUT I’D GO TOMORROW IF I COULD, IF I COULD AFFORD IT