Roger Waters uses his private jet to reunite a mum with her kidnapped children
Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters used his private jet to reunite a mother with her kidnapped children after more than four years apart.
Waters flew Felicia Perkins-Ferreira from Trinidad & Tobago to the Iraq-Syria border to greet her sons Ayyub, seven, and Mahmud, 11, on Tuesday (22nd January).
Perkins-Ferreira hadn’t seen them since they were kidnapped by their father, Abebe Oboi Ferreira, and taken to Syria to live in the so-called caliphate in 2014.
Following the death of their father during fighting in Raqqa in 2017 the boys were abandoned by his new Belgian wife on the side of a road.
The children were picked up by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group who had been battling ISIS, and have spent the last few months living in a camp in Northern Syria.
Roger Waters’ friend, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, told AFP he tracked down the children's mother and then contacted Waters, who was interested in their plight.
Mr Stafford-Smith said: "Waters agreed to pay for it all and flew the mother over from Trinidad. We're going to make sure that they get on with a really productive, decent life."
Waters himself was unable to make the final leg to the border, and told Channel 4: “I could not travel to Syria for reasons that I won’t go into – it’s too long-winded and boring.
“While Clive (Stafford Smith) and the others went across the Tigris and went to the camp and got the boys, it took hours and hours, and hours, and hours, much longer than you would imagine, to get them back and through all the police check-points but when I heard they were on the road I was entirely overcome (with emotion) and treated myself to a glass of cheap white wine and waited for them.
“They got back at about midnight and to see those two beautiful children and Felicia, who I’d got to know, it was deeply, deeply moving.”
> Inside the private jet with @rogerwaters as he goes to #Iraq to retrieve two little boys held in #Syria after their father joined #ISIS. pic.twitter.com/qzXKozgf54 > > — Ruth Sherlock (@Rsherlock) January 22, 2019
> These children, finally reunited with their mother after 4 years in #Syria after being dragged there husband who joined #ISIS. It took a private jet, a rock star and much more to get them back. @rogerwaters @CliveSSmith Full story on @NPR soon. #PinkFloyd #Music pic.twitter.com/ZaExmj3bld > > — Ruth Sherlock (@Rsherlock) January 22, 2019