“48 critical hours”: a real race against the clock to find two-and-a-half-year-old Emile | the world

Emile was playing in the garden of his grandparents’ house in Vernet, a village of 125 people, when he disappeared around 6pm on Saturday, on a steep hillside. According to preliminary elements emerging from two testimonies, the child left “where his grandparents live” and was “found by two people in the street downstream. This is where we lose track of him,” said Digne-les-Bains public prosecutor Rémi Avon at a press conference in Vernet on Sunday.

The search resumed at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, the gendarmerie said. “The search has been intensified and the perimeter has been extended,” said Vernet’s mayor, François Paulig.

Several leads were gathered to trace the boy. A total of ten dog teams, two helicopters, a thermal camera, as well as drones equipped with thermal cameras, were dispatched following reports of Emile’s disappearance. According to BFMTV, around sixty soldiers were busy clearing the area on Monday along with gendarmes from Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-Maritimes and Var.

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A hunt began on Monday morning, with hunters from the region and nearly 200 volunteers joining. “I have little ones in the family, I have children, I have friends,” Romaine, a volunteer, told our colleagues from BFMTV. “There are high-level gendarmes who define a sector, and we all stand two meters apart. (…) We really search everywhere, up to the water bodies. We try to improve the areas as much as possible.

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“We will see after 48 hours”, these 48 hours are “important to improve our chances”, “what the research has given”. “We will fix the device,” Marc Chappuis of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence said on Sunday.

“No hypothesis has been ruled out at this time, no one is privileged. We accept all hypotheses for the defense,” the prosecutor explained on Sunday, adding that there are “no clues” at this point to point to the trail of the abduction.

A judicial investigation into “the search for the causes of the disappearances of concern” was launched by the prosecution of Digne-les-Bains on Sunday morning, he continued, noting that it had been handed over to the research unit of the Marseilles Gendarmerie with the support of research. Regiment of Gendarmerie of Digne-les-Bains.

“At the moment, we have some signs (dogs of canine teams, editor’s note) that have led to verification, but this is a relative element because the sense of smell of dogs and we are in a rural environment .., in a mountain environment, there may be parasitic elements”, the magistrate put forward.

“House visits were carried out (in the hamlet) and they did not give any evidence one way or the other,” he added. According to BFM DICI, a badge will be pasted on searched houses. Some houses were also inspected twice.

“He managed to find refuge in a cellar, in a barn, houses are also being searched,” National Gendarmerie spokeswoman Nasima Djebeli explained on BFMTV’s microphone. “Chinnavan knows the village well. He knew his neighbors so well that he was able to hide, seek shelter, find water or eat, so no area should be reserved, and that includes dwellings.

The mayor of Vernet, François Paulique, did not understand “why Amelie was not found”. “Everything has already been visited and we start fresh today,” he told BFMTV. “We are in a village in which children circulate freely, so we do not understand, there have never been any difficulties or problems.”

The prosecution launched a call for witnesses at noon on Sunday with a photo and description of the child in all media. As for the line dedicated to the inquiry, it has received fifty calls so far and they are being processed, the Chancellor said on Sunday.

“Anyone who passed through the town of Vernet this Saturday is invited to contact 04 92 36 73 00. This is a line dedicated to this disappearance,” the investigators said. More details about Emil’s appearance were also shared: “Brown eyes, blond hair, 90 cm tall (…) wearing a yellow top and white shorts with green texture and hiking boots”.

Mass mobilization in France to find two-and-a-half-year-old little Emile: “No privileged hypothesis”