U.K. father reunited with sons after abduction

Abdul Abubakar has his kids for the first time since 2010, when they were taken to T.O.

Five years after his two young sons vanished from the U.K. to Toronto, their father is “over the moon” to have them back in Manchester, England.

On Aug. 14, the Star broke the news to Abdul Abubakar that his kids had been found safe and well in Hamilton, 5600 kilometres from home.

“Oh my God,” he said when first told. “Is that true? Where are my children? Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m absolutely shaking.” Since 2010 he’d had little knowledge of where they were or if they were even alive. Their mother, Anisa Mohamed Ibrahim, 35, consented to extradition to the U.K. last week. She will stand trial for abduction and disobeying a court order in the U.K. when she allegedly took the children to Toronto via Germany in 2010.

After years in the dark, and months of legal wrangling since his kids were found, Abubakar was finally reunited with his sons in Toronto at the end of December.

“I was over the moon. It was a great moment. I can’t even describe my feeling on that day, it was like a dream,” he said. “Even now we are together in Manchester, I still feel this dream is not real.”

The journey to reuniting with his sons, who cannot be named or pictured because they are minors, had been filled with peaks of ecstasy and valleys of despair. Soon after they went missing, the Manchester police mistakenly called Abubakar to say they had been found.

The moment he received the Star’s call, Abubakar began preparing to fly to Canada and hug his sons, but the long separation meant it would not be a simple reunion. The legal process, involving rigorous checks to ensure he could properly care for the children, delayed the homecoming more than five months.

Abubakar was granted limited time to talk to his sons, who remained in Children’s Aid care in Hamilton.

“Talking to the boys again did not even feel real. It was amazing,” he told the Star after the first phone call.

His joy was tinged with sadness, because only the older son had vague recollections of his father. It broke his heart, he said, to learn they had been given new names and did not at first recognize their birth names.

The boys’ mother maintains she is a victim of domestic violence, although U.K. courts have repeatedly found no evidence of that. Her lawyer, Andrew Confente, said she plans to keep fighting for her kids.

For the boys, the traumatic experi- ence is fading. They “are happy in their new home,” their father said. “They play outside freely, no one is hiding them indoors anymore. They’re very excited to go out and play with other kids, and they go swimming in the local pool.”

While he’s delighted to have them back, Abubakar is also still adjusting.

“They did not remember me at all . . . They are aware (that) their new names were fake, and they call each other their real names, and I call them their real names.

“Sometimes I forget myself and call them the fake names and they tell me, ‘Dad, don’t call me that fake name, call us our real names.’ ” With files from the Hamilton Spectator