The arrests were made after a passerby noticed the 41-year-old woman and 55-year-old man on the terrace of a café in the pilgrimage town of Fátima and alerted police. Officers from the National Guard (GNR) took the couple to the station, where they are currently being questioned, RTP reported, citing a GNR statement.
The parents are accused of abandoning the two brothers, aged four and five, on Tuesday evening on a remote country road in the municipality of Alcácer do Sal, about 60 kilometers southeast of Lisbon. The children were found crying by a passerby. According to the GNR, the arrested individuals are “suspected of having committed crimes related to domestic violence as well as abandonment and neglect.”
According to Portuguese media, the children had arrived in Portugal with their mother and stepfather only a few days earlier. The biological father, with whom the boys live in Colmar near the German border, had reported them missing in France. Portugal reported that the mother may have kidnapped the children.
Source: www.tagesspiegel.de
