2023-07-10 19:08:42
About sixty gendarmes are mobilized to find the child of 2 and a half years, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP
In vain, the scope of the search was extended on Monday, July 10, to find Emile, a child of 2 and a half years who disappeared after having escaped the vigilance of his grandparents on Saturday at Vernet, a village in the Alpes-de-Haute- Provence. Forty-eight hours after his disappearance, the boy was not “localized”, reported Monday evening the prefect of the department, Marc Chappuis. The latter announced the establishment of a new research system “more targeted and selective” from Tuesday. “We stop the beatings. We remain present on the ground, we deploy specialized resources in search of traces and clues.he specified.
“It is estimated that in forty-eight hours the child should have been found if he was in the perimeter” research, 5 kilometers around the hamlet of Haut-Vernet, where the grandparents’ home is, he explained during a press briefing.
The volunteers – there were around 800 on Monday – are invited not to go to the area anymore, at the request of the public prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains, Rémy Avon. “All hypotheses remain valid, none is favored or excluded”, he advanced. “Many witness interviews” don’t have “not brought new elements likely to be able to explain the disappearance of little Emile”added the prosecutor, according to whom there is no “for the moment no element which characterizes a criminal offense likely to be at the origin of this disappearance”.
“Almost all” the houses of Haut-Vernet were also visited by the investigators, with the exception of two, which were abandoned.
steep areas
The search had resumed since 6 a.m. Monday, according to the gendarmerie, which mobilized around sixty soldiers, a helicopter and a dog from Saint-Hubert, with a very developed sense of smell. Firefighters, including some specialists in dog research, and volunteers crisscrossed the mountainous, steep areas, dotted with small streams, to find the child.
The little boy was playing in the garden of his grandparents’ house, in this village of 125 inhabitants, when he disappeared around 6 p.m. on Saturday. The area is steep.
Read also: Emile, a 2.5-year-old boy, is missing and actively sought in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence
According to the first elements emerging from two testimonies, the child left “the place of residence of his grandparents” and was seen “on a downhill street by two people. This is where we then lose track of him.”, said Sunday the public prosecutor, during a press conference held at Vernet. The investigation, opened on Sunday to find the causes of the disappearance, was entrusted to the research section of the Marseille gendarmerie, supported by the research brigade of the Digne-les-Bains gendarmerie.
Call for witnesses launched by the gendarmerie on July 9, 2023 to find Emile, 2 and a half years old. HANDOUT / AFP
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