Children abducted from Ethiopia

Born in Ethiopia, they were adopted like thousands of other Ethiopian children. Torn from their family by a malicious association, they landed in French families who wanted to adopt. Now adults, they have been able to reconnect with their Ethiopian family.

These are stories marked by lies and concealment, where symbolic and physical violence mingle and entangle, split, troubled and broken identities. They were born in Ethiopia but were taken from their families, adopted through a Catholic association, the Children of Queen of Mercy.

Samuel is one of them . He arrived in France in 1996 with his two sisters. He remembers little of his biological parents, who died as a child. Before his adoption via the Children of the Queen of Mercy, he was placed in an orphanage.

I was not prepared for a departure for France. We were cleaned like cars to make us presentable.

When he meets his adoptive parents, very practicing Catholics, Samuel remains in the dark. With his two sisters, he arrived in Limousin in a family of six children, two of whom were adopted.

His daily life is marked by the absence of pleasure: the education is severe, punctuated by bodily corrections. If Samuel has few memories, he remembers his enmity ...

They disgusted me a little. He had a beard that repelled me. I thought they smelled bad, I found them ugly and scary.

TO LISTEN

Listen again to the adopted country

29 MIN

FEET ON THE GROUND

The adopted country

As he grows up, the beatings and violence increase. Her first sister ends up leaving the home after a scene of violence with the adoptive mother:

She was punching him on the head. My sister got up and slammed her against the wall, and she left. There, it was a pretext to say that my sister was extremely violent, that it was a danger and that she had to be placed.

Samuel's second sister also ends up leaving, before he leaves himself far from Paris, penniless, without anyone.

I don't even feel like I was wanted, in fact. I don't even call them my parents, because there is nothing in common between parents and these people, nothing positive that connects us.

A few months ago, the young man came into contact with other adopted children through the Children of the Queen of Mercy. He then realizes that his case is far from isolated: his identity, like those of other children, has been annihilated.

They changed my whole identity. As if I didn't have an individual history. My story has been eradicated.

Despite the deterrent attempts he encounters, Samuel manages to return to Ethiopia and meet his entire family, including his maternal grandfather:

He told me how he came to the orphanage to pick us up, pick us up, and how he was even forbidden to see us. It looks a bit like a kidnapping, what. […] I wonder how I could have been dispossessed of such a part of my life.

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Listen again to Asylum and exile: two welcoming stories

28 MINS

FEET ON THE GROUND

Asylum and exile: two stories of welcome

Julie is now 24 years old. Coming from a modest family, she spent a pleasant childhood in a town south of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. When her father dies in a car accident, Julie sees her mother struggling to care for her daughters.

One day, she announces to Julie that she has to leave: she and her sister will go to America. When they leave, the two sisters are taken care of by a man who is waiting for them in the street. During the trip, the latter affirms:

“You're going to have to say your mother died of illness. " I do not understand why.

Taken to the orphanage, the two girls are washed like objects, shaved and then dressed. When Europeans visit the orphanage, it's a party: we feign happiness before some children disappear that same evening, adopted. Comes the day when it is the turn of the two sisters. Like Samuel, Julie does not expect what will happen:

I had no idea where I was, even when I arrived in Roissy. For me, I was in America, because I had no knowledge of Paris or of France.

Very quickly, Julie's relationship with her adoptive mother strained. Julie refuses to see her biological mother replaced. Except that the couple thinks they have adopted orphans ...

Everything was going well at school, but at home it was really difficult. I wanted to run away, it was too complicated to be in this world. I was in a new world, but I couldn't forget the old [Ethiopia]. One day, I took 37 tablets. When I did this, my parents were tired. I was too hot.

His adoptive father, however, tries to clarify the story. After receiving certain information, Julie writes a letter to her biological mother, who responds to her a year later explaining that she was beating her and her sister, because she could not do otherwise.

Tired of this eventful history, Julie moved to Paris. She ends up reconnecting with her old life and Sara, her old name. In 2017, his biological mother resurfaced in his life through social networks. It is on this occasion that she reconnects with her, hears her face to face on the phone, and discovers all the lies, all the manipulations, all the reasons for these difficult years ...

I had so much pain for my mother. That she had to go through all of this is inhuman

Find all the Causette investigation "The Children of the Queen of Mercy" by Anna Cuxac and Alison Terrien:

Episode 1: Orphans Weren't

Episode 2: Sponsorship scam?

Episode 3: The adoptive families file a complaint

Report: Alain Lewkowicz

Director: Yaël Mandelbaum

Thanks to Saba, Julie and Samuel.

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