SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By James Rothwell
Three German children have been rescued from a “horror house” in Spain where they spent years living under a COVID-19 lockdown allegedly imposed by their parents.
Spanish police arrested the adults, who allegedly forced their children to remain in the house wearing face masks and nappies long after the end of COVID restrictions.
The eight-year-old children from Oviedo have been confined to their homes since 2021. Their ten-year-old brother was also at home.Credit: portaltela.com
An investigator told Spanish media that “as soon as we got them out, all three children began to breathe deeply, as if they had never been outside before”.
Speaking to El Comercio newspaper, investigators suggested that the parents suffered from “COVID syndrome” and had continued to live in fear of the virus for several years.
“We have all been affected by COVID syndrome and the consequences of the pandemic. We can reflect on what led a family to live in confinement for so long,” the investigator said.
The children – reportedly eight-year-old twin boys and a 10-year-old boy – appeared to be amazed that they were finally allowed outdoors, and went to touch the grass on the lawn, investigators said.
They had been forced to wear three face masks on top of each other before officers entered the house, Bild reported.
The villa in the northern town of Oviedo in which the family lived was raided by police during this week’s major power cut.
The parents initially demanded that the officers put on face masks as they searched the house.
People living nearby said the family was extremely reclusive and never left the house, with food being delivered to the door as if the pandemic were ongoing.
After entering the house, police found a large supply of face masks and medicine, along with huge amounts of rubbish.
A seriously ill cat, which had seemingly not been taken to the vet because the parents feared they would catch COVID, was also found.
Investigators had to speak English to the children because they had not been attending school and had not learnt Spanish.
The family was reported to have been living under lockdown conditions since 2021, despite COVID restrictions being lifted in Spain in March 2022. The pandemic broke out in early 2020
The German newspaper Die Welt, which referred to the villa as a “horror house”, said that the family’s mother had both German and US citizenship, but police had few other details about where they came from.
The Telegraph, London
