Parents leave son and infant daughter (3 and 5) blindfolded on deserted country road while on vacation

©Syawal Nasarudin via Unsplash

At first, the children still 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 motherless and also blindfolded on a deserted country road in the Portuguese countryside.

On Tuesday night, a bewildered Portuguese local resident found the children in a state of 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 bag 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 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. They are now being sought by the police. The biological father has already filed charges in France for kidnapping his children.

©Syawal Nasarudin via Unsplash - illustration image of a deserted country road