Thirty-one adopted Congolese children were finally re-united with their adoptive Italian parents at Rome’s Ciampino airport. The children could be seen waving from the plane with broad grins as they were allowed to meet their new parents, who they had only known for a few months in their homeland of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).br br Twenty-four Italian couples had flown to the DRC in November 2013 to adopt children and were blocked from leaving as the government authorities stopped adoption procedures in order to investigate adoption practises, following a report that said some children from the country had been sold into human trafficking rings.