Alcacer Do Sal, Portugal: A French couple has been arrested after allegedly abandoning two young children in a remote wooded area near Alcácer do Sal. Marine Rousseau, 41, and her partner, Marc Ballabriga, 55, were detained by police following an international tracking effort across France, Spain, and Portugal.
According to authorities, the couple allegedly left Rousseau’s two sons, Barthelemy, 5, and Zacharie, 3, in the forest under the guise of a blindfolded game. The children were reportedly instructed to keep their blindfolds on and search for a knife buried in the ground. When the older boy removed his blindfold, the couple had vanished, leaving the toddlers alone with only a change of clothes, two bottles of water, some biscuits, a pear, and an orange.
Distressed and crying, the young boys wandered onto a rural road where they were discovered and rescued by locals Eugenia and Arthur Quintas.
The suspects were apprehended on Thursday at a café near Fátima, approximately 100 miles from where the children were abandoned. Rousseau, who works as a sexologist, has been placed in pretrial detention at the high-security Tires Prison in Lisbon, where she is currently held in solitary confinement. Ballabriga, a former French police officer with a prior record for aggravated assault, is being held at Setúbal Prison.
The children are currently in foster care receiving medical and psychological evaluations. Local authorities hope that with time and proper support, the boys will recover from the trauma.