Couple remanded in custody after boys found abandoned by road in Portugal

A French woman and her partner were remanded to custody Saturday after being charged in Portugal with abandoning two young boys in a rural area.

The children, French brothers ages 3 and 5, are the woman’s sons.

They were found Tuesday along a road near Alcacer do Sal, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Lisbon, carrying backpacks with food, water and a change of clothes.

They did not have identification documents, Portuguese media reported. A passerby and his wife rescued the boys and took them to a police station.

The rescuers said the boys reported they had been blindfolded and led into a forest under the guise of playing a game, according to Portuguese media. The boys said they could not find their mother or her car when they removed the blindfolds.

A European-wide search for mother and missing children

Portuguese authorities said the boys lived with their mother in Colmar, in eastern France. The woman was no longer with the children’s father, who reported the mother and the two boys missing on May 11.

French authorities then issued a Europe-wide request to help locate the woman and children.

Portuguese police arrested the woman and her current partner, also a French national, at a cafe in the town of Fatima on Thursday. They were brought before an investigating judge, Antonio Fialho, in the city of Setubal on Friday.

Mother and partner remanded to jail

Judge Fialho ordered the woman and her partner into pretrial detention after a two-day hearing that concluded Saturday. They were charged with child endangerment and abandonment.

The two adults are suspected of causing grievous bodily harm and abandoning children, Fialho said in court. The man was also charged with aggravated assault against one of the children, according to the court.

The mother is 41 years old, and her partner is 55.

*Editor's note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and urges us to refrain from revealing the full names of alleged criminals.

Edited by: Louis Oelofse

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