A group of 31 Congolese children, adopted by Italian parents, waiting for months for clearance from the Congolese officials to travel home to Italy, have finally arrived home this morning.
Deeply moved and relieved, their families waited for them on the runway and welcomed the children home with tears of joy.
A happy ending for the long adoption row involving 31 Congolese children who remained stuck in Kinshasa for months even though they already had Italian citizenship.
Last September, the Congolese Ministry of Interior and Security, General Direction of Migration (Direction Generale d’Immigration, DGM) temporarily suspended issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents, on suspicion of irregular procedures. This suspension was due to an ongoing investigation of adoptions that may not have complied with Congolese law.
Although the allegations of irregularities did not concern Italy, as reported by the same Congolese authorities, even Italian adoptions were affected by the DGM's decision.
In early November, the former government's Minister of Integration Cécile Kyenge, originally from Congo, visited the country to discuss the issue with Congolese authorities and was assured the adoption procedure would be concluded shortly.
But it took seven extra months to get out of the deadlock. Finally, an agreement reached between Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, seems to have helped unlock the standstill.
On Monday, Renzi announced on Twitter that he “had just given the go-ahead: a government plane will depart for Congo to bring home the adopted children”.
This morning, at around 10.00 am, the state plane carrying the children, accompanied by the Italian Minister of Constitutional Reforms Maria Elena Boschi, who traveled to Congo yesterday to meet them, landed at Ciampino Airport in Rome.
"The children are doing well, they are happy to be with their adoptive families,” Boschi said. “On the plane they slept most of the time because they were very tired. They went crazy with joy when we landed and, from the windows of the plane, spotted their parents waiting."
