According to the man who found and saved the children, they each had a backpack on with a change of clothes, a packet of biscuits, some fruit and two bottles of water. He said the contents of the backpack immediately made him realise they had been abandoned.
“I realised straight away that they had been abandoned because of the backpacks, the way they had been made up,” he said.
Speaking to Portuguese media, Quintas said the older boy initially believed they had got lost and it was his fault. The boy explained to him what had happened:
“To trick the children, the parents blindfolded them and put them in the forest to play a game. They told the children to go and look for a toy,” he said.
Portuguese police arrested the mother, Marine Rousseau, 41, and stepfather Marc Ballabriga, 55, on suspicion of domestic violence and child abuse.
Their car, with a French licence plate, was found outside a cafe in Fatima, Portugal, about 200km away from where they had abandoned their children.
The pair had been sitting inside the cafe for several hours, sparking suspicions among locals, who eventually called authorities when they recognised the woman’s face and their car, after seeing the news.
The mother is believed to have left France two weeks ago with the children, without telling their father, only to end up abandoning them in Portugal, nearly 2000km from their home. Back in France, the father had reported their disappearance to French authorities who had been searching for the woman and children for two weeks.
The mother has been identified as 41-year-old Marine Rousseau, a sexologist from Colmar, France.
According to reports, she is believed to have also abandoned a 16-year-old son in France.
The mother and stepfather have been arrested by Portuguese police and the children are currently in the care of a foster family.
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