Police in three countries are searching for six-year-old twin sisters from Switzerland. They were abducted by their father, who killed himself on Thursday night.
This content was published on
1 minute
swissinfo.ch and agencies
Italian, French and Swiss police are now on the hunt for the girls who are thought to have been taken to the island of Corsica.
The girls, who live with their mother in Saint-Sulpice near Lausanne, were visiting their father last weekend. But he failed to take them to school on Monday as planned.
The 43-year-old Canadian-born man reportedly withdrew more than €7,000 (SFr9,080) from cash points in Italy. Police in canton Vaud said on Sunday that the man had probably taken his children to Corsica before heading for Italy.
He and his daughters were seen at a Marseille travel agency, where the man bought three tickets to Corsica.
The mother of the twins is a 44-year-old Italian who has been living in Switzerland for three years.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Kidnapping alert to be sent by text message
This content was published on
The move, revealed on Tuesday, is the latest innovation in a nationwide alert system for child kidnappings that has been in operation since January 1, 2010. Under the SMS message system, all registered subscribers near the site of the kidnapping will receive a message along the lines of: “Kidnapping alert: On 24.2.10, at 8am in…
This content was published on
Although runaways can very quickly become vulnerable to exploitation, it is still extremely rare for children to be abducted and harmed by strangers, police say. In November 2005, three children from one family, aged nine, seven and six, were unlawfully taken by their father from their home in Switzerland. The children – two boys and…
This content was published on
The justice ministry says that in the majority of cases it is the mother who is responsible for the kidnapping. Figures from the ministry’s Central Authority for Dealing with International Child Abduction show that there were 49 cases of parental kidnapping in 2004. Many of the cases involved children caught in a tug-of-love wrangle between…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.