Rajwan Kafrouni’s Story: A Motherhood Stolen by the Abduction of Daniel-Mohammad

“I want to tell my son that you were abducted… and that your mother is suffering every single day just to be able to reach you.”

Rajwan Kafrouni addressed her message to her young son, Daniel-Mohammad, through the “2osas Hayat” podcast, in which she appeared as a guest on Sharika wa Laken. She was trying to gather her strength to tell Salah’s family, her estranged husband, that “no matter what they do, they will not erase the fact that I am his mother, even if they try to strip me of my motherhood,” her voice at times betraying her with its trembling.

For years, Rajwan endured verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Salah Saleh, a Lebanese national who works as an economic attaché at the Lebanese Embassy in Baghdad. While Rajwan was living with her son Daniel-Mohammad in France, where she works as a university lecturer, she repeatedly attempted to mend the relationship, especially as Salah was living away from them due to his work.

In August 2024, Salah’s contract with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was at risk of termination, prompting him to prepare to relocate and live in France with his wife and son, following a decision by the Ministry at the time to end the assignments of all economic attachés.

The decision was reversed months later, and the attachés were retained on the condition that their salaries be reduced to 30 percent. This led the couple to agree that Rajwan and Daniel would remain in France, where the mother had a stable job, and the child had access to adequate medical care and education. The family would reunite during occasions, holidays, and vacations, either in Lebanon, France, or Iraq.

How Was Daniel Taken from His Mother?

At the end of 2023, after months of tension, violence, “psychological manipulation,” and “attempts at reconciliation,” the couple agreed to separate, with the understanding that the separation would take place in France, where custody and care of the child would be guaranteed to both parents.

“Salah made me believe that he had agreed to the divorce against his will, that he had begun saving money for my child and for me, and that his acceptance of separation came out of love for me.”

The agreement stipulated that Daniel-Mohammad would spend all holidays and summer vacations with his father, alternating between Lebanon, France, and Iraq, depending on the work circumstances of each parent, to ensure a stable paternal relationship with the child.

In any case, Salah only saw his son during Christmas holidays, summer vacations, and occasionally spring breaks; the separation was not expected to change these arrangements, except that Rajwan would no longer accompany her child on these visits.

During the winter break of February 2024, which lasts two weeks in France, Salah obtained a one-week leave to visit Daniel in France. The family then traveled together to Baghdad after Rajwan took a week off work so that the child could complete his vacation with his father. Rajwan was cooperative despite her desire to separate and did not anticipate what Salah had been planning.

Rajwan recounts how, on February 28, she was subjected to a severe physical assault in front of her child: “My son was crying and screaming hysterically while Salah was violently beating me. Daniel started shouting: ‘You’re hitting my mom! No, no!’”

She continues: “He threatened to kill me while trying to strangle me, then said he would go get a knife to slaughter me. He tried to smash a mirror over my head and then forced me to take off my clothes and put on others, preparing to leave.” She adds, “He then called the embassy driver and asked him to buy a ticket to Lebanon to force me to leave. I was crying and trying to calm him down, but he became more aggressive and savage.”

When she tried to embrace Daniel-Mohammad, Salah pushed her to the ground, repeatedly slammed her head against the floor, then took her passport and Daniel’s Lebanese and French passports and left the house. She followed him to the car and got in, trying to stay with her son. But Salah got out of the car, carrying the child in his arms, and fled, leaving the engine running while the car remained locked.

“My child was in his pajamas, without even socks. That was the last day I saw my little one. He was three and a half years old.”

My Country’s Embassy, Lebanon, Did Not Do Me Justice

Rajwan immediately contacted the French Embassy in Baghdad, as both she and her son hold French citizenship. She was asked to obtain a forensic medical report to document the bruises and to file a complaint with the Iraqi police, which she did.

She then contacted the Lebanese ambassador, Ali Al-Habbab, who informed her that Salah had come to the embassy and that he would try to calm him down. About 20 minutes later, an embassy employee appeared and confidently approached Salah’s car, which was still parked beneath his apartment building in Baghdad. He drove it away, while Rajwan’s attempt to follow was futile.

About an hour later, the ambassador called her and asked her to come to the embassy. The same employee who had taken her husband’s car transported her there. The Lebanese ambassador noticed the signs of violence on her body but took no action. Instead, he told her that he had prevented Salah from issuing a travel ban against her, which made her feel implicitly threatened, even though such a measure was not legally possible, as she is considered a foreign national in Iraq due to her Lebanese and French citizenship.

The ambassador returned her passport, explaining that he could not intervene further because matters had become complicated after she informed the French Embassy of what had happened, especially after Salah sent him, via WhatsApp, a document claiming that he was the child’s legal guardian, which, according to the document, rendered the embassy unable to assist her. The shock came when the ambassador advised her to return to her abusive husband and live with him in Baghdad.

It is worth noting that Salah had managed to obtain a ruling from the Ja‘fari court granting him compulsory guardianship a week before Rajwan arrived in Baghdad with her son.

Amid this display of patriarchal authoritarianism, Rajwan felt that the Lebanese Embassy in Baghdad was biased in favor of its employee, particularly as the document stated that he was the child’s “compulsory guardian,” not the custodial parent.

Fearing for her safety, Rajwan spent the night of her son’s abduction at the Lebanese Embassy, hoping to meet Salah when he returned to work the next day. He did not show up, and the ambassador confirmed that Salah was not responding to his calls. She later returned to his apartment, hoping he would come back there with their child.

It later became clear that Salah’s brother and cousin had arrived in Baghdad before Rajwan and the child, renting an apartment to hide the boy until she left Iraqi territory, suggesting that everything had been planned in advance.

“My mother was deeply affected during her first visit with Daniel. Her grandson refused to go near her, and his features showed severe psychological distress.”

Returning to France… Without My Child

Two days after abducting Daniel-Mohammad, Salah returned to his apartment to collect some clothes and ordered Rajwan to leave Iraq. He threatened her, claiming that he had filed a ta‘a (obedience) request with the Iraqi authorities and that the police would come the next day to serve her with a decision that would not even allow her to leave the apartment, leaving her in a state of panic and terror.

Salah’s threats came after he learned that Rajwan had filed a formal complaint against him at the Karkh Police Station’s Family and Child Protection Unit, and that her appointment with the investigative judge was scheduled for just two days later. The following day, Rajwan left Salah’s apartment and moved to a hotel, continuing with the legal complaint procedures, particularly as she had been directed to do so by the French Embassy.

Rajwan decided to return to France, but asked to see her child before leaving, even if the meeting were to take place inside the Lebanese Embassy and under security supervision. The ambassador informed her that Salah had refused, and even blocked the delivery of the gifts she had brought for her son. She returned to France and was finally able to speak with Daniel-Mohammad by phone; he told her how much he missed her and longed for her. After her return, Salah’s narrative shifted: at times he claimed he loved her and needed her, while at others he accused her of abandoning their child and walking away from him.

Salah’s manipulation did not stop there. He continued to emotionally blackmail her, attempting to place the full blame for her separation from her son on her insistence on leaving the marriage.

Like many cowardly abusers, Salah completely denied having assaulted Rajwan, going so far, almost absurdly, as to claim that she was the one who attacked him. He used this deliberate distortion of facts to corrupt the narrative in Daniel-Mohammad’s mind, convincing the child that his mother had beaten his father, that she was the one who left them alone, and that the sadness on his father’s face was her fault. Salah rejected all attempts at an amicable settlement, clinging to a single option: her return to him. He refused any alternative, threatening to cut her off entirely from her son’s life if she did not submit.

He renewed pressure on her to renounce her French citizenship, claiming it “did not serve the family’s interests,” and sent her a form to give up her French nationality, all while tracking her car via a GPS device and demanding that she send him her location around the clock. Control and surveillance were compounded by a harsh, patriarchal discourse in which he repeatedly told her she was “being punished by God” for leaving her husband’s home and disobeying his orders to return, insisting that he had the right to force her back even against her will.

All of Rajwan’s attempts to communicate with her son failed, as did her family’s efforts to resolve the case or confront any member of Salah’s family to reach a settlement. “My family, my father and mother, were only allowed to visit Daniel-Mohammad three times during this entire period,” Rajwan says. These visits took place in Lebanon, in the town of Al-Abboudiyeh in Akkar, at Salah’s parents’ home. The first visit was in December 2024, during which Rajwan was not allowed to speak to her child by phone. During the second visit, however, she was exceptionally allowed to speak with him via a video call after a complete cut-off that lasted 11 months.

The meetings were conducted under strict surveillance by members of the father’s family, who deliberately remained close to her parents, casually blowing shisha smoke, while the child was surrounded by threat and monitoring, unable to freely express his feelings.

“My mother was deeply affected during her first visit with Daniel-Mohammad,” Rajwan says. “Her grandson refused to approach her, and his features showed severe psychological anxiety.” Rajwan recounts that her young son’s words to his grandmother were like a thunderbolt: “Daddy hit Rajwan with a shoe.” This only intensified her fear for her child, trapped between fear and deprivation, denied his mother’s care and affection. A reality that Salah himself did not deny, as he repeatedly acknowledged that Daniel-Mohammad’s psychological state was not well, while continuing to manipulate his child’s mental health to blackmail and pressure the mother.

“The most painful thing,” Rajwan says, “is that my son believes his mother does not love him, when in truth I love him more than myself. My psychological state in his absence is devastating. I never stop thinking about him, trying to call him, and sending voice messages and photos so that he does not forget me, or the days we spent together.”

The Law Was Not a Remedy

Rajwan initially avoided resorting to the courts, seeking an amicable resolution through family mediation. But in April 2025, she was forced to turn to the Ja‘fari court to demand visitation rights to see her son after he was smuggled out of the country. Under the prevailing rules, custody of a male child automatically transfers to the father after the age of two, placing her in an unequal legal battle from the outset.

In January 2025, Rajwan had filed a complaint with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attaching documents proving that she had been subjected to violence. Salah, however, refused to respond, benefiting from his diplomatic immunity. After returning to France, she filed a complaint with the French police, prompting French authorities to send an official notification to Iraqi authorities stating that forcibly removing a child from those responsible for his custody and detaining him outside France constitutes a criminal offense. The notification also documented the violence and death threats directed at Rajwan in front of the child. Iraqi authorities responded with complete disregard; no official reply was issued.

In June 2025, Salah filed for divorce in response to lawsuits for alimony, visitation, and the recovery of personal belongings. It later emerged that he had secretly obtained a travel ban and an obedience order without legally notifying Rajwan or her family. Paternal authoritarianism did not stop there: the abuser imposed impossible conditions for divorce that effectively deprived the mother of her child. These included restricting her contact with Daniel to remote communication and allowing her to see him only in Baghdad, for two hours inside the courthouse. He also conditioned the divorce on her dropping all lawsuits she had filed against him outside Lebanon.

Daniel was expelled from his school, feeling rejected by his classmates. He began displaying negative and aggressive reactions and was neglected, left almost permanently with a foreign domestic worker in his father’s home.

How Is Daniel Now?

Daniel-Mohammad was an active child living a stable life with his mother before being abruptly torn from his educational and social environment. Rajwan says his father refused to tell her the name of the school he attended in Baghdad. After an exhausting search, she later discovered that he had been transferred between more than one school without her knowledge. According to the father’s own statements, the child faced communication difficulties and aggressive behavior resulting from accumulated trauma.

Throughout this period, Rajwan searched for her son among children’s faces on schools’ social media pages, asking herself with every image: Is this my child?

She adds that the father’s work and constant travel meant that Daniel spent most of his time with a nanny. During sporadic phone calls, the child expressed sadness and loneliness and spoke at times of being subjected to violence. Rajwan also noticed a change in his behavior toward her when his father was present, compared to his natural, affectionate communication when he was alone.

Since filing for visitation in April 2025, Rajwan has remained deprived of her right to divorce her abuser and to see her child. “Salah’s approval of the visitation location is fundamental,” the judge ruled, despite acknowledging her right to visitation. Communication between mother and son was completely cut off in October 2025 after all means of contact were blocked. The father has since remarried, his wife has moved to live in Lebanon, while Daniel remains in Baghdad with the nanny.

Today, Daniel-Mohammad turns five years old away from his mother, who insists that she has not, and will never, abandon him, and that one day she will tell him: “I didn’t leave you, my love. They kept us apart.”