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“I FELT that my future was already ruined, the future of the children would also be ruined.” These are the words of a Frenchwoman named Sylvie Yasmina who was rescued along with her five children from a dilapidated dwelling in Bara, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. When police got to the house, they found Sylvie and her children living in an unfinished, broken-down house with bruises all over their bodies. The rescue took place because Sylvie’s eldest son had somehow managed to escape and go to the authorities. There he explained to police that he was French and that his mother and siblings were being held captive.
After the rescue, Sylvie told the police that she and her husband, who is from KP, had married in 2003. At the time, both had been living in Australia, where her husband had been working illegally. They had two children there, where they lived until 2012. They moved to KP after that and had no contact with the outside world since 2014. News videos showed the family living in a derelict home, with the youngest of the five children in ragged clothes. After the rescue, Sylvie was taken to a women’s police station where authorities saw that she had been beaten. The French embassy was contacted and proceedings begun to verify their identities. Once these are completed, Sylvie is expected to return to France with her children.
