Three children kept locked inside their home since 2021 have been rescued by Spanish police, according to local reports.
Officers said they arrested a 53-year-old German man and a 48-year-old American woman in Oviedo, northeast Spain, on Monday.
The three children – two eight-year-old twins and a 10-year-old – have been taken for medical evaluation and are now in government custody at a juvenile centre, according to Spanish outlet El Comercio.
Another Spanish outlet, ABC, reported that the parents had been charged with domestic violence, habitual psychological abuse, and child abandonment.
It added that the parents were being held in pretrial detention without bail.
El Comercio reported that an investigation was launched after a neighbour complained on 14 April about children who lived in the home not attending school.
Spanish outlet El Mundo added that other locals told police they had not seen anyone enter or leave the property since December 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It reported that when officers went to the property during the power outages in Spain and Portugal, the mother told officers to “be careful” since her children were “very sick”.
Officers told the outlet that the home was filled with rubbish and a large number of medications and masks, and that the children did not appear to have any illnesses.
The three children were also reported to be sleeping in cribs, which officers said were defaced with drawings of monsters and dolls.
One agent told El Mundo: “The children were in terrible shape. It was absolutely outrageous. Not malnourished, because they were fed.
“But they were also dirty… [and] completely cut off from reality, and not just because they didn’t go to school. When we took them out of the house, into the garden, where they wouldn’t even go outside, they saw a snail and went crazy, freaked out.”
Speaking at a news conference, Oviedo Police Chief Javier Lozano described the property as like a “house of horrors”.
“We have given three children back their lives,” he said, according to El Comercio.
“We have dismantled the house of horrors.”
