His name is Émile, he is two and a half years old and disappeared without a trace last Saturday afternoon while he was playing in the garden of his grandparents’ house, where he spent his holidays, in Le Vernet, a town in the Alpes de Haute Provence, in the south from the country. A large device has been looking for him since then: fifty gendarmes and 24 firefighters.
Hundreds of residents and volunteers from the town also participate in the search efforts. This occurs in steep and mountainous areas. Dogs, helicopters and drones with thermal cameras have been deployed. “The first 48 hours are crucial,” Digne-les-Bains prosecutor Rémy Avon said at a press conference on Sunday.
“A total of 800 people have taken turns in the last two days to try to locate the child within a radius of five kilometers around the place where he was last seen. At this time he has not yet been found,” he has said this Monday Marc Chappuis, the prefect of Alpes de Haute Provence.
“In 48 hours, he should have been found if he had been within the estimated perimeter. The searches should have allowed us to locate him,” he added.
An investigation into “disturbing disappearance” has been opened. In a first appearance on Sunday, prosecutor Rémy Avon explained how little is known about his disappearance. There are few clues: he was seen by two witnesses going down the street. The little boy was playing at his grandparents’ house, in an area with semi-detached houses, “as in a kind of town square.” That’s where they lose track.
The people who last saw him did not find the situation disturbing and therefore did not alert the police and the missing minors alert was not activated. “No hypothesis is ruled out at this time,” said the district attorney. The little one could have fallen, had an accident, but it is not ruled out, therefore, that someone had taken him.
A telephone line has been opened to find clues, and fifty calls have already been received. The prosecutor has added that the device will be adjusted according to the needs. At the time of his disappearance, the little boy was wearing a yellow shirt and white pants.
The investigation is being conducted by the investigation section of the Marseille gendarmerie, which is supported by the investigation brigade of the Digne-les-Bains gendarmerie.
Le Vernet is a small mountain town, which became infamous because it was where a Germanwings plane crashed in 2015 with 150 passengers on board, most of them Spanish and German, covering the Barcelona-Düsserdorf route. The mayor then came to lament: “There are more victims than inhabitants in the town.”
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