7 USA kids abandoned in Nigeria

[JayBee]

August 18, 2004







HOUSTON -- Seven Texas children were discovered abandoned at a Nigerian orphanage, suffering from disease and malnutrition, and have been brought back to the United States.

Child Protective Services, which received emergency custody of the children Monday, is investigating accusations that the children's adoptive mother abandoned them in Nigeria in October and later went to work in Iraq as a private contractor.

The Houston woman, whose identity was not released, allegedly left them at a Nigerian school that later discharged them for nonpayment of tuition.

The three boys and four girls, ranging from 8 to 16, were discovered in late July by a visiting Texas missionary.

''It's horrible, horrible,'' child agency spokeswoman Estella Olguin said. ''I haven't seen anything like it. Seven children fending for themselves in a foreign country where they have no family members.''

Four of the siblings were adopted from Houston in 1996, followed by a set of three siblings from Dallas in 2001.

The woman took all the children in October to Nigeria, where a relative of her fiance lived. The children were enrolled in school and the mother returned to Houston about 30 days later. She went to work in Iraq in April.

But the children were removed from school because payment for their tuition stopped. Nigerian child-protection authorities found the children in a wooden shack, malnourished and sick, and moved them to an orphanage in late July.

A minister from a San Antonio church alerted lawmakers after he overheard the children speaking with American accents. To prove they were Americans, the seven children sang the national anthem, San Antonio pastor John Hagee said. AP



The adoptive"mother" was getting $500 per child permonth from the State, and puts them in an orphanage in Nigeria.

 

[shortbun]

She should be in prison. To abandon children who had already
been effectively abandoned in that manner will scar them for life.
Boy, I'd like to give her a good kick once they find her.

 

[Luckymommyx2]

I saw a clip of this on the news the other day. Unbelievable! There are no words to describe the type of person that would do something like this.

 

[JayBee]

Abandoned kids raise new accusations against adoptive mother

CPS investigators say they're finding new evidence of abuse by an adoptive mother who allegedly abandoned seven American children in Africa.
By The Associated Press


(8/19/04 - HOUSTON) — Seven Texas children found abandoned at a Nigerian orphanage have leveled new accusations against the adoptive mother who left them there, claiming that she struck them with switches and a cane and had repeatedly threatened to take them to Africa if they ever told law officers about earlier abuse reports, child welfare officials say.


Child Protective Services officials have referred the new abuse complaints to authorities for an investigation. The Houston Police Department is investigating the matter, Sgt. Rose Terry said Wednesday.


The adoptive mother faces a custody hearing Aug. 26. The woman, identified by authorities as 47-year-old Mercury Liggins, is also facing a state investigation stemming from payments she received to help care for the three boys and four girls, who range from 8 to 16 years old.

The children, suffering from disease and malnutrition, were discovered in late July in Ibadan, Nigeria by a visiting Texas missionary. The missionary's San Antonio pastor notified House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn, who then contacted CPS and the U.S. State Department, along with the ambassador in Nigeria. The children were returned to Texas last week.

On Wednesday, Harris County CPS officials said they had investigated four abuse complaints against Liggins dating back to 1997. However, officials said they found no evidence of abuse in the family's Houston home.

A staff worker at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston filed at least one of the complaints, saying the children were underfed, unhappy and scared.

"The kids were always just telling us they were hungry," Mona Bates, a unit director at the club the children regularly attended, told the Houston Chronicle in Thursday's editions.

Child welfare officials received the latest complaint in September, one month before the mother took the children to Nigeria, where a relative of her fiance lived. The children were enrolled in school and she returned to Houston about 30 days later. She went to work in Iraq in April for Houston-based Halliburton's subsidiary KBR as a food services employee. But she quit in July.

When payment for the children's tuition stopped, they were removed from school. Nigerian child-protection authorities who found the children malnourished and sick inside a wooden shack moved them to the orphanage in late July.

Four teenage girls were adopted from Houston in 1996, followed by a set of three boys from Dallas in 2001.

Liggins had been receiving more than $500 a month for each of the seven children. Payments for the children adopted in Houston stopped in March when Liggins told state officials that a grandmother in Houston would be caring for them. But the Dallas CPS office continued sending her money for the siblings adopted there.

The Dallas children's birth mother said Wednesday she wants the boys back.

"They know they were taken from me," said LaQuinta Teague, 27, who who lost the trio six years ago when she went to prison for assaulting a peace officer. "It wasn't like I wanted them to go. I know they want to be back home."

Estella Olguin, a CPS spokeswoman in Houston, said the complaint from last September involved concerns that the children were hungry and dirty and had little food in their home. But she said when caseworkers went to the house, they found the pantry, the refrigerator and the freezer stocked with food and the children denying they were neglected.

In July 2000, CPS investigated a complaint that the children lacked food and were crowded into a single bedroom with no fan or air conditioning. But CPS workers who visited the home found the four girls sleeping in one room and the three boys sleeping in another, Olguin said. The rooms had fans, and the home was well-stocked with food, she said.

She said two other complaints, one in March 1997 and one in February 1998, involved accusations of physical abuse. But the children told a visiting caseworker that they had not been physically abused by their mother, said Olguin.

 

[CindysGusGus]

No Words!

 

[MosMom]

Wasn't it obvious to someone in Nigeria that these children were American and perhaps they should contact the embassy? How bizarre.

 

[jennyanydots]

I was shocked when I read this. How horrible for those children! I am glad they were rescued.

 

[LScot]

It sounds like John Hagee's church is going to follow through and make sure these kids are taken care of. God Bless each of them!

 

[Mimi Q]

 

[CEDmom]

My heart goes out to these children I hope they find a loving home soon. Maybe the woman who calls herself a mother should be put in that shack for awhile.

 

[m&m's mom]

This was kind of a local story as 3 of the kids biological Mother lives here in Dallas.
They has the birth mother on the local news crying about how her babies were taken away from here and how awful everyone else was to her. She said the kids were so much better off w/ her-this woman is on the porch of a house that no one would think was inhapitable, smoking, and crying her eyes out. Mind you she just got out of prison LAST WEEK! and that was her 2nd prison stint since her kids were taken away. She admitted she was on welfare and did not work.
Those poor kids have had bunch of tough brakes in life!