Boniface Mwangi and family detained in French airport
Controversial activist Boniface Mwangi and his family were forced to spend Wednesday night at the Paris International Airport for missing their flight.
Mwangi was traveling with his family – including three children – from New York on Tuesday and they were to connect their flight in Paris.
But on arrival at the Paris International Airport they found that their connecting flight had already left because the Delta flight they were using was delayed in New York.
“We found ourselves detained for three hours by the border police in Paris while trying to get the connection via Amsterdam. My family didn’t have Schengen visas but the airline gave us the Amsterdam tickets anyway. Apparently we couldn’t transit without Schengen Visa’s but the Air France ground crew never bothered to let us know that,” Mwangi wrote in a Facebook post.
He added that they had to spend the night at the airport.
“We arrived here 2nd September 10:15am and we shall depart 3rd September 1100hrs (24 hours later). French police have refused to let the airline get us a hotel or so they claim. ”
STRANDED
Mwangi said that apart from being stranded at the airport they still had to find what to do with the kids sleeping at every bench and floor they stopped at.
The activist said that he went back to the border police base to ask about the denial but the officer he found there didn’t even take a look at me.
“The French police may justify they’re trying to keep out illegal immigrants but the lack of empathy, understanding and zero effort in listening to us hurts.
“We are stranded in France not because we want to but the airline made a mistake and we the paying passengers are suffering.
“What strikes me is that between all the requests, the shuttling back and forth, the airline’s (Flying Blue-Sky Team) involved didn’t admit we are in this transit mess because of them,” he said.
Mwangi, who posted photos that captured his frustration on his Facebook page, said that one day he will write in detail about what happened during those long frustrating hours in the French capital.