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Travelling with young kids can be extremely stressful at the best of times.
Keeping them entertained and in good spirits while traversing the airport is one of the biggest parenting challenges out there.
But one mum has shared a true horror story that she went through with her kids at an airport.
Comedian Nikki Osborne was undertaking a mega trip across Europe with her two young children.
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But on the way home, disaster struck the family.
The mum-of-two was flying through Dubai airport on her way back home to Queensland, with her two young sons, Will, 15 and Teddy, 10, in tow.
But Osborne claims that airport staff then separated her from her children, taking them out of her care.
“We proceeded through airside security and headed towards our gate,” she told the Courier Mail.
“They checked our boarding passes and passports; we travelled to yet another checkpoint.”
Osborne explained she handed their tickets and passports to an officer who then gave a moment's pause.
Instead of ushering all three through security, the member of staff decided to split up the three family members.
“To my bewilderment, he identified and pointed to my two young boys, gave them their corresponding papers, then said to me, ‘Lady, you go through the gate to board your plane. Boys, you come with me,'" Osborne recalled.
"What?” she asked the man. “Hang on, what?”
Osborne recalled her sons looking at her in horror as they realised they were about to be taken away from their mother.
“I was in absolute shock, I looked around at my fellow passengers,” she went on.
“For reassurance, for anything.
"They stared in disbelief.
"My kids froze, sheer horror on their faces.”
“As they led my kids away from me, leading them somewhere I couldn’t follow, I said ‘F**k this for a joke’ and marched behind them,” she said.
“My vague protest was ignored.”
“Who in their right mind thinks it’s OK to separate young children from their mother?” she questioned.
The family were reunited shortly after, but Osborne has explained the children were already highly distressed.
“My youngest cried the entire 14-hour flight home,” she explained.
“He’s still processing what happened.”
“What happened at that checkpoint was disturbing, and what Australians would call ‘bang out of order.’”
Tyla has reached out to Dubai Airport for comment.
Annie Walton Doyle