Portuguese police arrested the mother of two young French boys on Thursday who were found abandoned by a main road in the south of the country, alone and crying.
The boys, aged four and five, were rescued on Tuesday by a passing motorist near the resort town of Comporta, where they had been left with backpacks containing food and water but no identity documents, according to Portuguese media.
A manhunt was launched for the boys’ mother and on Thursday, Portuguese police said they had arrested her in the central town of Fatima, along with a 55-year-old man, on suspicion of abuse, endangerment and abandonment.
The boys were reported missing from their hometown of Colmar, in eastern France, by their father around 10 days ago.
After finding the children, motorist Alexandre Quintas took them to a bakery run by his family before alerting the authorities.
“We asked them if they liked ice cream,” Quintas told the online outlet Observador.
“And we gave them something to eat and some toys to keep them occupied.”
His mother Eugenia Quintas said a local doctor who spoke French had enabled them to talk to the two boys.
“They said they had arrived by car and got out in a bushy place, a forest, as the older one called it,” she told the AFP news agency.
She said one of the boys said they had been blindfolded and told to look for a hidden toy and when they took their blindfolds off, their mother and her car were gone.
“On them they had an orange, a pear and a bottle of water each. We didn’t see any signs of mistreatment,” she said.
French prosecutor Jean Richert said the woman’s family had reported her missing on 11 May and a judicial inquiry had been launched to investigate the circumstances.
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“What was surprising was that she wasn’t at home, had no reason not to be there, and hadn’t informed anyone,” he told AFP.
The father of the boys, who is separated from the mother, “like everyone else, he doesn’t understand,” said Richert.
The Portuguese attorney general’s office told AFP a court was investigating alongside the police inquiry, adding: “The children were taken to hospital, where they are under observation.”
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