Melissa Hawach with her daughters, Hannah and Cedar Hawach.

This mother should not be in hiding. The Lebonese authorities and the Canadian embassy personel should have been able to help her be reunited with her children. And the soldiers who helped her locate those children when the authorities were of no help should be praised not jailed.

That's the risk you run when you marry and reproduce with foreigners.

This mother should be shot for putting these children at risk,and the so called mercenaries, they are facing 15 years jail. And they are very highly still at risk on the run in a foreign country!!!

As someone who knows Melissa and has kept close watch on this awful situation, I can assure everyone that she has her childrens' best interests as her top priority. She has attempted to use legal methods to get her girls back but, not surprisingly, those have failed. She is a loving mother who is doing what she needs to in order to get her daughters home where they belong. Pat, perhaps saying that she "should be shot" is a bit ignorant when you don't know all the facts. Those girls were at terrible risk by being kept prisoner in a foreign country (that is essentially a war zone) and away from their mother. I hope you never have to know the pain she has lived with for the past several months but if you do, you will realize that a loving mother will do whatever she has to in order to secure the safety and well-being of her children.

I undertsand where your coming from Colleen, but what about our fellow Australian and New Zealand ex-soilders that helped her retrive her kids, she has ruined there lives and their familes lives just to make her's happy, come on now where is the common sense in that. And she is still stuck in Lebanon as the news is saying here in Australia.

My opinion still stands, she should be shot!!!!!

Pat should be shot, as a survivor of this type of horrble crime, and the mother of two that were abducted, maybe you should shut up unless you have walked in melissa's shoes!!!!

My heart breaks for her and those two and the years of anger she will face in the future. this will NEVER go away. It's been ten years for me and even though I have my kids back, I am so very angry that this crap keeps happening.

Pat, you'd do best to keep your ill-formed and insensitive oppinions to yourself. It's really sad and unfortunate that these men have been caught and are facing a long time in prison if charged and convicted... however, they are grown men, capable of making their decisions... this is the sort of thing they do for a living - they weren't innocent bystanders, dragged into a situation against their will - which is what has happened to Melissa and her girls.

Pat,

I am Melissa's aunt. I was shocked by your comments. I have been praying for 5 months for my niece and her babies. It's obvious that you need someone's prayers too. When all the facts are available I hope you send a sincere apology to Melissa for what you said. Maybe you should use your anger to pray for all involved. May God forgive you.

All you people are seeing her side of the story,

I was on her side but not any more after what she has done to ruin a lot of people's life just to try and make her life happy, I don't see the point of trying to be a hero in a Middle east, forigen country. Hiring armed gunmen to get your kids back, how dumb is she!!!!( I wonder what all of you would be thinking of her if one of the kids got hurt).And she is still stuck there.

I only pray for the kids of what she is putting them through.

And for her Aunt, you keep praying she get's out alive!!!!

I think Melissa and her father are doing what all mothers and grandfathers would do in these circumstances ... they are heroes for the risks they have taken in their attempt to bring these girls back to Canada where they belong ... I think it is best if everybody here try to ignore Pat's ignorance, insensitivity and stupidity in this matter ... Lynn, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family ... When you hear that Melissa and her daughters are safely out of Lebanon or have any other news, please let us all know ...

This is a wake up call to Australia and Lebanon, who will not agree to extradite Joe for what he has done.
Mothers around the world must unite to help prevent this happening to any other woman in the future. How can Melissa now be considered a criminal??? It is because the staus of women in the middle East is that of a dog. Joe knew this and that is why he took them their. You may have seen the movie "Not Without my Daughter", this is what Mel is facing. Dispicable, disgusting treatment of women in those countries. Mel and her father are very brave for doing this and I think the world needs to sit up and take notice of the REAL issues underlying this event. I hope to god that they come home safely.
Mel you are a hero in my eyes!

We will not go gently...will we?! Time to stand up and fight!
As Rhonda Morgan stated, the kids came running to her, there was no abduction on the soldier's part!

What alternative did they have?

Hang in there Lynn, many people around the world are aware of this story and are praying for your family. I'm sure when they come home, we will all sleep better!

Melissa Hawach wanted her daughters back home in time for Christmas, and she's alleged to have hired a squad of mercenaries to do the job. Now, Ms. Hawach, her father, and her two daughters, five-year-old Hannah and three-year-old Cedar, are missing, presumed to be hiding somewhere in the Middle East or possibly on their way back to Canada.
Canadian Foreign Affairs officials refused to say yesterday whether they have recently been in contact with Ms. Hawach, 32, but confirmed they have been providing her with consular assistance since July.Ms. Hawach is believed to have spirited her daughters away from her former husband on Dec. 21 with the assistance of a team of ex-soldiers and special-operations experts from Australia and New Zealand.Two men, Australian Brian Desmond Corrigan and former special forces member David Bruce Pemberton of New Zealand, were arrested at Beirut airport last week, and Lebanese police are seeking three other men suspected of being part of a kidnap plot.
Ms. Hawach's supporters say the men played no part in the capture of the little girls, but were hired for their surveillance skills.
Ms. Hawach, originally from Saskatoon, had been involved in a heart-wrenching custody dispute since the breakdown of her marriage to Joseph Hawach, an Australian of Lebanese descent.
Although Ms. Hawach was granted custody of the girls, she allowed them to travel to Australia to visit their father in July. Three weeks later, they did not return as scheduled. Ms. Hawach and her father, Jim Engdahl, travelled to Australia to find them, only to be told by Mr. Hawach's relatives that they were out of the country and would not return.
Ms. Hawach eventually discovered that her ex-husband had taken the girls to Lebanon, where his custody rights might be seen more favourably, because both he and the girls have Lebanese citizenship. He was charged with abduction in Canada, but there was little Canadian authorities could do to help Ms. Hawach regain custody of the children, who, she believes, were taken to Lebanon at the height of this summer's war with Israel.
Rhonda Morgan, executive director of the Missing Children Society of Canada, worked closely with Ms. Hawach while she consulted lawyers in Lebanon, Australia and Canada.
"Melissa didn't go over there with the intention of the reabduction of the kids. She went over there to go through the courts," Ms. Morgan told the Associated Press on Saturday.
But having learned that the legal process could take as long as two years, her patience may have been at an end.
Ms. Morgan said Ms. Hawach hired a team of former soldiers to watch the girls and their father. She travelled to Lebanon in mid-December and checked into the resort hotel where they were staying, 30 kilometres north of Beirut.
For several days she watched her daughters from a distance as they played outside. Ms. Morgan said Ms. Hawach decided to approach the girls and, if they wanted to go with her, she would take them to the Canadian embassy.
When the moment was right, with a car waiting, she called to the girls and swept them up as they came running, Ms. Morgan said.
Ms. Hawach's family and friends could not be reached for comment yesterday, and her whereabouts remain a mystery. It's not known whether she has been able to flee Lebanon, or what consequences she might face if she is stopped by Lebanese authorities.
The former high-school valedictorian moved to Australia and met Mr. Hawach in 1994 while working as a waitress at his family's restaurant in Sydney, friends have said. The couple married in 1999, and moved to Calgary in 2003. They separated in October, 2005.
Ms. Hawach brought an application before the Australian courts last month to compel Mr. Hawach's relatives to reveal where he was keeping their daughters. Outside court, she described her ordeal as "absolute torture." "I am not going away, this will never go away until my girls are at home in bed," she told the Australian news media.

The Canadian Embassy better be helping Melissa and her girls get out of Lebanon. They were certainly there for all the dual Lebanese/Canadian citizens in July - so why can't they do the same for this Canadian family? I kept hoping for a Christmas miracle but it hasn't happened yet. Once they are safe and sound, I'll be looking for explanations from the Canadian government.

I don't know how someone can be so cold. These guys that she hired didn't have to take the job but they know how important family is and would love the assistance of anyone who is willing to offer if they were in Melissa's shoes. I am also family of Melissa and its been quite an amazing story to say the least. Pat you may feel disgruntled toward the actions of the people that are helping Melissa, but put yourself in her shoes. If it were your kids would you be sitting at home pleading with the Cdn Gov't to help you. After 6 long months of having NO IDEA of where your kids are, if they are safe and if they are being treated properly. Especially when they are in a country where girls/women are not very high on the popularity list. You should be ashamed of yourself. I'm proud to say Melissa is my cousin. She is doing what any normal thinking parent would do. For anyone who disagrees ought to have their head examined for psychotic tendencies.

PS I'm from The Pas, Manitoba. Not Bowness, Canada. First time on this site

Pat needs to understand that these were grown men who made their own concscious decisions to help Melissa. It is terrible to think of what they will be going through in the future and how unfair it is, but to hold Melissa responsible is just as unfair.
Having grown up going to school with the Engdahl family, I can only pray that Melissa's quest to get her children back is successful. Sending her children off for a holiday, and having been betrayed by Joe in this way, I can't imagine being in her shoes. Best of luck to Melissa and her family, and know that our thoughts and prayers are with you.

As a fellow Australian of Pat's, I think I should explain to the other posters that he has put down his address on one of his posts as Lindfield which has a high Lebanese population. Perhaps this is where his views are coming from. I hope Melissa and her children find peace and the Australian and New Zealander who went to help her are released soon.

I do not understand why the other part of the story isn’t being tackled. From what I know there’s a mom and a dad in every family, so in what right is Melissa praised for kidnapping the kids when Joe is condemned for doing the exact same?!!! Apart from that, the 2 girls hold dual nationalities and they are Lebanese as much as they are Canadians, so how do you people know where is the best for the kids to stay???? Isn’t that for the parents to agree upon? This whole talk about the dangerous situation and bad living conditions in Lebanon only reflects the ignorance of the view holders since none of them knows what is going on here, in fact life here is just as healthy for the kids as any other city in Canada or Australia. I understand that Melissa went through many hardships, she did deserve to be at least notified to the whereabouts of her kids, but this does not explain her irresponsible and selfish behavior which could have put the lives of the girls and others in danger. My only hope is for the parents to get together and reach a settlement for the sake of these Lebanese girls!

You are so misinformed, Sami ... And you are showing the same ignorance of the facts that you accuse Melissa's supporters of showing ... Courts decided that the girls would be better off with their mother and she was granted full custody. Or do you not respect the decisions of courts?... She allowed the girls to visit their father in Australia -- a huge mistake -- and he abducted them, taking them to Lebanon during a war ... Safe?... Is that responsible parenting?... There is only one person who is wrong here and it isn't Melissa ... Now, she is doing what any good parent would do ... Also, the girls do not hold dual citizenship, another incorrect assumption you are making ... They are not Lebanese citizens ... Furthermore, you are living in a dream world if you think there is any chance of a reconciliation between Melissa and her ex in regards to their children. If he ever comes to Canada, he will have a nice little prison cell waiting for him ... which he so richly deserves for putting so many good people through this nightmare ... Before you accuse others of not having all the facts, Sami, please check and then double check your own.

Sami - The girls are NOT as much Lebanese as they are Canadian. They have been raised in Canada (although Hanna was born in Australia, as I recall). Their family and friends are in Canada. I've heard one of their young friends ask "Where's Hannah and Cedar?", wondering why they haven't been around for so long. I'm not denying their Lebanese heritage but it is clear that their lives are here in Canada. And Melissa is praised for what she has done because she is correcting a wrong. In Canada, she has legal custody of the children. And imagine what it is like to be two young girls wondering desperately where your mommy is, not knowing when you will see her again. That is a form of torture in itself. Also, I realize that Lebanon is a beautiful country with a rich and wonderful culture. However, taking children there during a terrible "conflict" (some of us viewed it as war on Lebanon, by the way) is completely irresponsible. And just so you know, Melissa would not have done what she did if she believed the children would be in danger.