Kom niet aan mijn kinderen (2010)

It is the autumn of 2004 when Hanne (Karina Smulders) lets her ex-husband Nizar (Cahit Ölmez), who is Syrian, take her two oldest children, Azim (Jurgen Bogaert) and Bibi (Fiona Livingston), for a weekend, supposedly to visit Euro Disney. Her ex-husband calls her and tells her that he is in Damascus with the children because he was threatened in the Netherlands. Hanne’s new boyfriend, Bertus (Tjebbo Gerritsma), suspects that the claim about the threats is untrue. Hanne travels to Damascus several times with Wouter (Thom Hoffman), a man who specializes in cases involving abductions, to visit the children and try to find a solution. Nizar refuses to hand the children over, and under Syrian law he is not required to. He lies to the children, telling them that Hanne no longer wants to take care of them, and also lies to his family, who wonder why Hanne did not come along. The children want to return to the Netherlands and discover that Hanne wants them back too. Hanne also discovers that the children are being abused. She tries to take them without Nizar’s permission, but fails. Staff at the Dutch embassy tell Hanne that they cannot help a mother abduct the children, but that if the children are in danger and come to the embassy themselves, they will assist them. Because Nizar has portrayed the embassy staff to the children as nasty people who want to put them in a children’s home, a meeting is arranged so the children can see that they are kind people. Hanne gives the children a mobile phone and advises them to flee to the embassy at a suitable moment. They do so. Hanne forgot to give them money for a taxi, but they have saved some themselves. When they arrive at the embassy on the street, they discover that Nizar has also arrived. They hide and call Hanne for advice. She alerts the embassy. Embassy staff invite Nizar inside to stop him from preventing the children from entering, after which the children can also be brought inside. After staying at the embassy for several months in 2006 (not shown in the film), they are able to return to the Netherlands thanks to high-level diplomacy.