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Home / World

Sally Faulkner's gofundme campaign aims to bring kids back from Lebanon

By Debra Killalea
news.com.au·
10 Jan, 2017 12:36 AM3 mins to read

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Sally Faulkner is crowd-funding in another attempt to bring her two children home from Lebanon. Photo / AP

Sally Faulkner is crowd-funding in another attempt to bring her two children home from Lebanon. Photo / AP

The Brisbane mother at the centre of the 60 Minutes kidnap saga has turned to crowd-funding in a renewed attempt to bring her two children home to Australia.

Sally Faulkner, who spent two weeks in a Lebanese jail last April following a failed attempt to get her children Lahela and Noah from her estranged husband Ali Elamine with the help of a 60 Minutes crew, revealed she is now almost broke following the saga.

Faulkner was later released along with Tara Brown and her crew, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson, sound recordist David Ballment, but lost custody of her two children in the process.

Faulkner told the Courier-Mail she had moved back with her mother and had almost nothing, despite receiving $150,000 for the publication of her book All For My Children.

Her memoir was published in November, however she claims the money has been swallowed up in legal fees and was used to repay debts incurred during her time in Lebanon.

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The gofundme page, which has been set up by friend Tanya White, aims to raise $20,000 which will help fund legal fees to fight for custody of the children in Lebanon.

In her appeal, the distraught mother reveals how she's at breaking point after her ex husband took the children, now three and six to Lebanon for a holiday, and refused to bring them home.

"I'm frightened for their safety - I haven't seen or spoken to them in over six months (since the day that I had to hand them back to their father in Lebanon)," the page reads.

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"Lahela just turned 6 and Noah will soon be 4 - pulled from our life in Brisbane and dumped into a dangerous, war-torn country in the Middle East."

Faulkner, also mother to son Eli, one, with partner Brendan Pierce, takes aim at the Australian government which she said has done nothing to help her.

She also said she is concerned for her children's wellbeing and is desperate to see them again.

"Ali leaves the children now full time with his mother who is about seventy and who doesn't speak much English as he goes to work in Beirut two and a half hours away from where the children stay," she writes.

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"Lahela and Noah don't speak Arabic either so communication between their carer now is limited."

In the appeal, which Faulkner shared on her own Facebook page, the post explains the huge cost, both financially and emotionally, that she has faced.

"The cost of legal fees to help bring Lahela and Noah home is more than anyone could imagine," it reads. "So much so that Sally is having to sell her car! What any mother in the same situation would do I'm sure."

Faulkner, who regularly posts updates about her battle to regain her children, also reveals the fight to regain the kids is hurting her in other ways.

In a New Year's Day post she writes: "Ali if you have read this please know. I will no longer call and email because it's been two years now and you haven't given me or our children the respect to answer. I'm taking that power trip away from you this year and showing you your actions are wrong in other ways."

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