Trois-Rivières man deported to Ivory Coast for alleged war crimes
Angelica Montgomery | CBC News | Posted: September 12, 2016 5:17 PM | Last Updated: September 13, 2016
Abou Fofana's wife protests husband's innocence, pleads to Canadian authorities to let father of 3 stay
After years of delays, a Trois-Rivières man suspected of war crimes was deported to his native Ivory Coast at 10 o'clock Monday night, despite his family's insistence that he has done nothing wrong.
Abou Fofana has left his Quebec-born wife and three young children behind in Trois-Rivières, 135 kilometres northeast of Montreal.
"It's definitely very difficult. The children don't understand," said his wife, Geneviève Trottier, said in an interview prior to his deportation.
Trottier said their children, a four-year-old and three-year-old twins, have been suffering from stomach aches and had been acting out in daycare.
"At first, we lied. We told them he was leaving on vacation to Africa," she said.
However, the children kept asking why he was choosing to leave.
"Finally, we opted for the truth."
Carpenter or war criminal?
When Fofana came to Canada in 2008 seeking asylum, he identified himself as an artist and dancer, officials from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said.
His application for refugee status was rejected three years later, IRCC concluding that "there are serious reasons to think, beyond a simple suspicion, that Fofana has committed a war crime as a member of the rebel group, the Force nouvelles."
Fofana acknowledged he worked for that group as a carpenter in order to survive. He said he never took part in any military actions with the Force nouvelles, which is now in power in the country.
"They don't need to have proof to say he is a war criminal. There are no formal charges. They only suspect [it]," said Trottier.
Fofana's subsequent application for permanent residency was also rejected in 2013. The Canadian government did not deport him at that time because it did not have the documents it needed from Ivory Coast.
But once the paperwork had been processed, the government acted: Forfana has been flown out of the country, leaving Trottier to raise their children alone.
"We are totally devastated," Trottier said.
"The Canadian government is not going to help me more because they have taken my husband away."
She had been hoping for a last-minute reprieve or an intervention from the immigration minister.