The Spanish police have freed three children of a German couple who had been locked up at home since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The parents were arrested in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo, and the children were placed in a care home, a police spokeswoman confirmed upon request on Wednesday. Policeman Francisco Javier Lozano described it as a “house of horror,” the newspaper La Nueva España reported.
Spanish media reported that the house on the outskirts of the city was completely filled with rubbish. A neighbour noticed that children lived there who never went to school. She alerted the police.
The authorities initially did not provide any information on why the parents had isolated their children from the outside world.
The children, 8-year-old twins and a 10-year-old boy, had not left the house since December 2021, Spanish media cited the authorities as saying. They were not even allowed into the garden of the house, the reports said.
Inside the house, they had to sleep in caged beds. They were cut off from any contact with the outside world and never went to school. The parents forced them to wear nappies and face masks, local newspapers reported.
When the children were first led out of the house by officers, one of them reportedly touched the grass on the lawn with amazement. “As soon as we got them out, all three began to take deep breaths as if they had never been in the fresh air before,” an investigator told La Nueva España.
DPA
