Echoes of children's laughter can be felt inside Claire Kielty's home. She sits holding a photo of her son and daughter, missing now for more than two weeks.

Claire sleeps on the settee in the lounge in Warrior Close, Portslade, to be close to the phone on the sideboard in case it rings during the night.

Children's videos and toys, well worn and played with by Mo, nine, and May, six, still lay where they were left.

From her handbag, Claire pulled out drawings made by her children for her. She keeps them close all the time.

May had drawn a sunshine picture with matchstick sketches of mum, her mum's boyfriend, herself and her brother. All the figures were smiling.

Mo wrote on his crayon picture: "For my mum, to a very speshel (sic) mum!"

When she is alone, Claire clutches the children's favourite toys. She needs to touch, feel and smell her children to get as close to them as possible: May's plastic sunglasses, Mo's favourite toy car.

All the while, the words from her ex-husband ring in her mind: "I'm in Glasgow, I've got the kids and you won't see them again."

Claire said: "He wouldn't even let me talk to them on the phone. He said they were in bed but it was only 8.30 and there is no way they would be asleep by then."

Claire, 28, has hardly eaten or slept since her ex-husband Siddiq Ishaq, 34, ran away with the children after taking them for a contact weekend.

She has managed to sleep a little but only with the help of pills.

Grabbing her children and running away with them was something Claire always worried might happen one day following the couple's divorce in 1999.

It was something she never dreamt was possible when she first met Mr Ishaq in 1991.

He was a refugee from his native Sudan and she had just passed GCSEs at Hove Park School. She was 16 and working in a caf when they met in a pub in Brighton and quickly fell in love.

Claire said: "He arrived from the Sudan in 1987. He was a refugee and came to Britain as an economic migrant for a better life."

Mr Ishaq lived mainly on benefits but once ran a mini-mart in Worthing.

Two years after they met, Claire fell pregnant with Mo and she and Mr Ishaq decided to marry.

Claire said the marriage broke down and the two split five years later but she was always willing to let Mr Ishaq see the children.

She briefly looked back on the memories but her mind quickly snapped back to the loss of her children: "I am worried sick. I have cried buckets.

"Waves of emotion come over me. One minute I'm angry, the next sad."

Born in Shoreham and brought up on the Hangleton and Knoll estates, Claire first attended the same schools her children now go to.

She said her children belonged in the same community - their lives, their friends and their family were all there.

Claire feared for her children: "They would have been very reluctant to go with their father. They would be frightened.

"I'm not saying they don't like their dad but they are home-loving children. They are very close to their grandparents."

Councillor Gerry Kielty stepped into the father's role when Claire's marriage broke up and both Mr Kielty and his wife, Sue, who recently underwent major surgery, have helped Claire and the children ever since.

Claire said: "My father is distraught about this. He is very close to the children and he has taken it badly.

"For me, these past two weeks have been hell, literally. The children have never been away from here for longer than a weekend.

"It's cruel to me but much more cruel to the children. He has taken their lives away, taken them from the people who love them, their relatives and friends."

Mr Kielty said: "If their father had no contact with the children and had difficulties seeing them, I could understand - not condone - what he has done.

"But he has had loads of contact. My daughter has tried to act responsibly throughout. She is now in pieces."

Mr Kielty fought back tears as he told how close he was to the children: "They are like my own. I'm devastated."

"We are all Liverpool fans and we were planning to go to Anfield this coming season to watch a match.

"Being a councillor I'm involved in activities all day long but this has made me feel inept and paralysed.

"There is nothing I can do to help. I feel so isolated and alone."

Mr Kielty backed the police appeal for anyone with information about the children's whereabouts to come forward and call Sussex Police on 0845 6070999.