The search perimeter was expanded on Monday in an effort to locate Emile, a two-and-a-half-year-old child who went missing after wandering away from his grandparents' supervision in Vernet, a village in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.
"The search operations have resumed, intensified, and the perimeter has been extended," explained François Balique, the mayor of Vernet, to AFP.
The gendarmerie announced that the search resumed at 6am on Monday morning. Approximately sixty soldiers, a helicopter, and a highly skilled scent-tracking Saint-Hubert dog have been deployed for the search efforts.
The young boy was playing in the garden of his grandparents' house when he went missing on Saturday around 6pm in a rugged area. The grandparents reside in the specific hamlet of Haut-Vernet, which has 25 residents and is situated over a kilometer away from the village itself.
According to initial information from two witnesses, the child left "his grandparents' place of residence" and was seen "on a downhill street by two individuals. That is where we subsequently lost track of him," stated Rémy Avon, the public prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains, during a press conference in Vernet on Sunday.
© Hans Lucas via AFP
On Monday, the Departmental Federation of Hunters called for the mobilization of all hunters, and the mayor expects another significant turnout of volunteers. Over the weekend, there were between 100 and 200 volunteers. The search efforts continued until late Saturday night and resumed on Sunday morning at 6am. About forty gendarmes, including members of the high mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGHM), along with around twenty firefighters and willing residents, are participating, as reported by the same sources.
When asked about the possibility of a child abduction, the public prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains stated that "no hypothesis is currently being ruled out, and none is being favored."
