An American father is relieved to learn his 2-year-old son has safely made it out of Mariupol. But he says his estranged wife took the boy to Russia and it isn't clear when he will get to see him again.
By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Cesar Quintana agonized for weeks that his 2-year-old son wouldn't make it out of the battered Ukrainian coastal port Mariupol as Russian troops encircled the city.But Alexander and his mother are now in Russia, where Quintana, who has full legal custody of the boy in California, is no closer to seeing him again.
International parental child abduction cases are complex, and advocates say relatively few children taken from their countries of residence are promptly returned. More than 2,000 applications were filed in 2015 under the international treaty that puts in place a process for resolving these cases, and about 45% resulted in the children being returned, according to a report by the Hague Conference on Private International Law.
Quintana, 35, has been trying for more than a year to get his son back through the treaty process with Ukraine, since a California judge ordered that the boy should be returned to him. Quintana traveled to Ukraine, hired a lawyer and said he got Aslanova to agree to let him bring the boy to California. But he said her mother opposed and filed a complaint with police, which stopped him from doing so.
In Russia, the U.S. government's ability to provide routine or emergency services to U.S. citizens is"severely limited," a department official said. "We can't just kind of sit on our hands," said Hunter, whose organization supports parents whose children were taken overseas."We have to be ready."Quintana and Aslanova were in the process of divorcing when she was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence, according to a letter from Orange County prosecutors to Ukrainian officials.
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