The family who arrived on a flight from Egypt were finally able to enter French soil after spending four days stuck in the Paris airport.
A mother and her two children, detained for four days at Roissy airport, were released and authorized to enter French soil on Friday by the courts, AFP learned from concordant sources.
The imbroglio, which comes one year to the day after the start of the war in Ukraine, has not however been completely unraveled by the judge of freedoms and detention (JLD) who ruled on Friday afternoon in the annex of the court of Bobigny attached to the Paris airport, where the family appeared Tuesday at the descent of a flight from Egypt.
A decided release for the health of children
Indeed, the judge did not decide the question of the nationality of the family but ordered their release because he considered “that the children cannot stay in the waiting area for so long”, explained Me Issou Keita , the family’s lawyer placed for four days in this airport zone where foreigners who are refused entry by the border police are detained.
The mother claims to have fled the bombings
“You presented a number of documents. The examination revealed that they were forged”, explained earlier Friday during the hearing the JLD Sarah Massoud.
“Birth certificates are the only things I was able to take” while fleeing the city of Kharkiv, Marina had replied, accompanied by her two daughters, aged 10 and 14.
Before the judge, the mother, who explains that she went through Moldova, Cyprus then Cairo, claims to have fled the bombings in Ukraine a year ago.
Their release is “very good news” because “the doubt should have benefited this family right away”, welcomed Laure Palun, director of the National Association of Border Assistance for Foreigners (Anafé), who accompanied her for several days in the waiting area.
110,000 Ukrainians settled in France in one year
“Locking up a Ukrainian family on the full anniversary of the start of the war raises questions about the reduction in vigilance in the care of Ukrainians from the border”, however worried the association manager.
Now authorized to enter French soil, the family will be able to go to a reception center reserved for Ukrainians and it will be up to the prefecture to “evaluate whether to grant them the temporary protection” granted to these displaced persons. After a year of conflict, nearly 110,000 Ukrainians have settled in France, mainly women and children.
