More details known about parents who left children behind while on vacation in Portugal

©Egor Myznik via Unsplash

More information is being released about the bizarre facts that took place in Portugal this week.

At first, the children thought their parents were playing a game with them. Unfortunately, it was deadly serious. The French couple left their 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter all alone and blindfolded on a deserted country road in the Portuguese countryside.

On Tuesday night, a bewildered Portuguese local resident found the children in a panic near the village of Monte Novo do Sul, south of Lisbon. "I saw them running toward me, screaming and crying," the man told local media. "I quickly realized that they had been deliberately left behind: they were carrying backpacks containing clean clothes, a packet of cookies, two pieces of fruit and a bottle of water." The man took the children to the local police station.

They then told Portuguese police how their parents had taken them out of their way and dumped them. "They were given a blindfold, and then had to go find something in the forest. At first they thought it was a game, but it soon became clear that they had been abandoned by their parents," local authorities said.

The children were medically and psychologically examined under the supervision of youth services and then transferred to the French embassy in Lisbon. The biological father of the abandoned children has since reported to Portuguese police. His ex-wife allegedly fled France with their children; the woman and her new partner allegedly left the children behind. The biological father has already filed charges for kidnapping his children in France.

What is the evidence now? The two brothers had already been reported missing by their father on May 11. Eight days later they were found in Portugal, by the side of the road.

The mother was found with her partner in a café in the Portuguese pilgrimage town of Fátima, some 180 kilometers from where she had left her sons. The two boys, meanwhile, were placed in foster care.

According to CNN Portugal, when police arrived, the couple had already spent "several hours" on the café's terrace, with their (ditched) car parked next to the café. They were arrested by members of the National Republican Guard (GNR) and are suspected of domestic violence, neglect and abandonment. They are expected to appear before the investigating judge soon.

©Egor Myznik via Unsplash - illustration image of a child on a country road in a forest