Duisburg (dpa / lnw) – The police authorities along the Rhine between Duisburg and Emmerich on the border with the Netherlands have stopped actively searching for the nine-year-old boy and his 64-year-old father. That said on Thursday a Duisburg police spokesman for the German Press Agency. The boy and his father have been missing since Tuesday evening. They were said to have been caught by the current of the river and driven away. “Of course we keep our eyes open everywhere. But we are no longer looking specifically,” said the police spokesman.

According to previous knowledge, the child had played in the water on the Rhine and had been swept away by the dangerous current. The father and the 33-year-old mother then jumped into the water to save the boy. According to earlier police reports, the father had also been aborted during the rescue attempt. A fisherman, who had heard the parents’ cries for help, managed to pull the mother ashore with a landing net.

An immediately initiated search operation, in which the fire brigades from Duisburg and Wesel, the DLRG and the water police took part, was unsuccessful despite the use of divers and helicopters. The search along the shore areas, which continued on Wednesday, did not bring the hoped-for result either.