missing person case
Two-year-old disappeared in Bergdorf: France fears for little Émile
France’s police have published an appeal for witnesses about the missing Émile
© Gendarmerie Nationale
Two neighbors saw little Émile walking down the street. The two-year-old has disappeared from a French mountain village since Saturday – and many people in France are rooting for the search.
Two witnesses saw him, then he disappeared: In France, a feverish search for a two-and-a-half-year-old boy who had disappeared in a mountain village is underway, with great public interest. Émile was on vacation with his grandparents in Le Vernet in southern France when they lost sight of him on Saturday night, like the newspaper “Le Figaro” reported on Monday. “Apparently the family was about to leave the house to go on a trip. And he used that moment to get away,” said the mayor of the village the broadcaster BMFTV. However, the witnesses did not believe that the boy in the 125-inhabitant town was in danger. A search operation by the police and fire brigade using helicopters and drones not only joined the residents, but also more than 100 other volunteers.
Émile missing in France since Saturday
But the search was not successful until Monday evening, as reported by “Le Figaro”.. “The search will continue (on Tuesday) but we will adjust the system so that it is more targeted and selective,” department prefect Marc Chappuis told the newspaper late Monday afternoon. “Specifically, instead of search parties, specialized means are used to search for clues and clues,” it says. Previous searches in a radius of five kilometers around the hamlet of Haut-Vernet, where the boy was last seen, were unsuccessful.
The mayor of the town does not want to believe that the child was kidnapped. In the small community, strangers immediately caught the eye, he told the media. He could imagine that the child got lost in the mountainous environment at 1200 meters or hid somewhere. The little boy’s grandparents are “greatly concerned” that “gets bigger and bigger over time”. According to the mayor, Émile’s parents are now also on site. The responsible public prosecutor has announced that the place will be closed to foreigners. According to the French media, the area surrounding the village is steep, mountainous and criss-crossed by small watercourses. According to “BFMTV”, the residents were interviewed again on Tuesday morning in order to possibly get new clues as to where the boy could have disappeared to. More than 60 hours after Émile’s disappearance, the investigators changed their strategy on Tuesday morning: They are now also checking whose mobile phones were in Vernet and the surrounding area when the boy disappeared.
Other sources:National Gendarmerie on Twitter, “LeFigaro.fr”, “BFMTV.com”.