Daughter returned to Guinean resident deported from Belarus, who was kept in an orphanage in Minsk

Maryam Soumah and her daughter Sabina, who arrived in Guinea from Belarus. May 23, 2026. On the right, Sabina in the arms of the Guinean consul

"Two lives saved at once"

Maryam Soumah told Svaboda that on May 23, she was reunited with her daughter, who flew by plane from Moscow to Conakry, the capital of Guinea, accompanied by the Guinean consul and a medical worker.

Maryam assures that she and her large family in Guinea will be able to take good care of Sabina, and cannot contain her joy:

"I don't know how to properly express my thoughts — the joy is so immense! I, a mother, separated from my child since birth, cannot even convey to myself the trials I faced over the months. And today God put an end to my suffering. I thank the Belarusian authorities for saving two lives at once, and international humanitarian organizations - the UN, especially UNICEF-Belarus, AFP agency and other media. They truly fought for me and my daughter. Thanks to them, the Government of Guinea, knowing that one of its Guinean citizens was in a difficult situation, came to help so that my child could be with her mother."

The Embassy of Guinea in Moscow issued a travel document for the child, and two UNICEF offices communicated with each other to organize the girl's departure.

After the intervention of international organizations and Guinean diplomats, the Belarusian authorities found a way to return Sabina to her mother.

The child was picked up by representatives of the Guinean authorities, as the mother is banned from entering Belarus. The move of the one-and-a-half-year-old girl took several days. She was in her mother's arms for the first time.

"I spent days without food, nights without sleep, thinking that it was impossible to be far from my daughter, but possible to be near her. It was a time of prayer, and today God finally granted me. I want to thank everyone - both international and national organizations - for this noble fight that we waged together," Maryam Soumah told Svaboda.

What the human rights defender says

In fact, it was a special operation, said the human rights activist from Human Constanta, who dealt with Maryam's case, in an interview with Svaboda. 10 months passed after her deportation and almost a year and a half since Sabina was born.

"The child is already a year and a half old, but she has never seen her mother except on Zoom. Maybe we will raise help for her. But it finally happened."

The human rights activist from Human Constanta believes that in this case, the state bodies of Belarus did something that does not correspond to the norms of law.

"Yes, Maryam, her mother, violated the law, there were grounds to deport her. But the interests of the child were not taken into account. The migration service, together with the police, rushed to deport Maryam and left this child alone. In fact, there was a terrible violation of the rights of a child who did nothing wrong, but was left without a mother for a year and a half."

According to the human rights activist, the girl lived in an orphanage for a year and a half only because the migration authorities rushed to deport the mother. They could have expelled both, but they really wanted to "restore order."

"Previously, there was nothing like this in Belarus, there were threats to separate mother and child, but this did not happen. Now there are more and more migrant women in Belarus, many are pregnant. This frightens us. But we hope that the state will also draw some conclusions here, no one was interested in little Sabina living like this for a year and a half."

The human rights activist from Human Constanta believes that the Belarusian state itself put itself in such an awkward situation. They just needed to wait a bit, Maryam would not have disappeared anywhere, she was interested in being with her daughter, they could have waited until the child was discharged from the hospital and then escorted both of them:

"The situation would not have been resolved if an appeal had not been made to the UN on behalf of Maryam - to the Committees on the Rights of the Child, Women's Rights, to special rapporteurs. On their behalf, an appeal was made to the Belarusian state. And if the state ignores political requests, then here it responded and began to think about how to resolve this situation.

There were no grounds to deprive Maryam of her child. She was not deprived of parental rights, they were simply separated without any grounds. This is an administrative error that resulted in family separation."

The Belarusian authorities did not respond to AFP's requests for comment on the situation.

What preceded it

According to Maryam Soumah herself and representatives of human rights groups who handled her case, in 2025 the Belarusian authorities deported her to Guinea, leaving her newborn child in Minsk.

Her daughter Sabina was born prematurely in November 2024, weighing only 600 grams, her mother says. During premature birth and caesarean section, Belarusian doctors saved the lives of both mother and daughter.

After being discharged from the hospital, Maryam managed to see her little daughter several times while she was in the children's hospital. When Sabina was four months old, she was transferred to an orphanage in Minsk, and her mother was no longer allowed to see her.

Maryam said that at that time in Belarus, she was demanded to pay more than 30 thousand dollars for her child's treatment. She claims that she herself had a yearly medical insurance in Belarus at that time.

Maryam admitted that she wanted to get to the European Union via Belarus to study, she wanted a better life. But she denied that she wanted to illegally cross the border somewhere in the forest.

Later, Maryam says, Belarusian migration services recognized that her residence permit had expired and that she had violated the law. She was arrested for a month, then taken to the airport, forced onto a plane without her daughter, and deported from the country.

When Maryam returned to Guinea, she began seeking help from diplomats, human rights defenders, and UNICEF (the UN Children's Fund) regarding the return of her daughter.

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