2023-07-12 11:45:54
Time passes, terribly. Three and a half days after the disappearance of Émile, the investigators have still not found anything allowing them to find the little boy of 2 and a half years, and a second phase will open with the analysis of the data collected during the combing of the hamlet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence where the toddler was on vacation with his grandparents.
Despite the mobilization, “we have no clue, no information, no element that can help us understand this disappearance”, recognized Tuesday evening Rémy Avon, public prosecutor in Digne-les-Bains, explaining that if Émile had been lost at the start of Haut-Vernet, a hypothesis less and less probable, his vital prognosis would undoubtedly be, from now on, “very very committed”.
It is with this idea in mind, alas, that the gendarmes resumed their search this Wednesday morning, alone, without the hundreds of volunteers who flocked from Sunday to rake the steep environment of Haut-Vernet. After two days of beatings, the gendarmes barricaded the village, allowing only its 25 inhabitants to pass, to look for clues. “The gendarmes then invested the place to be able to carry out judicial search operations”, in search of the “smallest clue”, the “smallest trace”.
A national investigation unit set up
The 30 buildings making up the town were “totally visited”, 12 vehicles searched, the 25 inhabitants heard and 12 ha “meticulously” raked. A unit of sappers from the Foreign Legion specializing in the search for caches was mobilized and the search went so far as to probe haystacks in search of “ferrous materials”, with specialized metal detectors. In all, more than a hundred soldiers worked all day and their sweep “will be extended” this Wednesday. “There are still a few vehicles to visit and a few hearings to drive from the people present in Haut-Vernet on Saturday when the child disappeared,” the magistrate explained to AFP on Wednesday. This work done, the operations should “in principle end today”, in accordance with the “new temporality of the investigation” that he mentioned the day before.
VIDEO. Disappearance of little Émile: “The vital prognosis is very very committed”, according to the prosecutor
The investigation cell will now become a “national” cell, to increase from 15 to 20 investigators and access expanded scientific and technical resources. In particular, it is necessary to exploit the approximately 1,200 calls received since the broadcast of the call for witnesses.
Asked this Wednesday about the probability that Emile could have gotten lost alone around the hamlet and that he had not been found despite the search and sweepings, the prosecutor judges that the hypothesis is still not to be excluded, “even if this probability is very small”.
#Émile #investigation #continues #cessation #search #operations #HautVernet