Australian police discovered child who had disappeared for weeks

The nightmare is over: around two and a half weeks after disappearing from a campsite, a four-year-old is back with her parents in good health.

Sydney – Around two and a half weeks after his mysterious disappearance from a campsite in Western Australia, the police have safely discovered a four-year-old girl.

Cleo Smith was freed by the police from a locked house in Carnarvon, 75 kilometers from the campsite, as Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch said early Wednesday morning (local time). Cleo is safe and sound, she has been brought to her parents. A suspect from the town was taken into custody and questioned.

The police broke into the house early in the morning, said Blanch. “We achieved this result thanks to incredible police work.” The police wanted to present further details on the case at a press conference later on Wednesday. The girl’s mother, Ellie Smith, wrote on Instagram: “Our family is complete again.”

Girl disappeared from the campsite

Carnarvon is about 75 kilometers from the campsite from which the girl disappeared. The family also comes from the village. The government of the state of Western Australia had offered a reward of one million Australian dollars (around 650,000 euros) for clues leading to the girl’s being found.

The four-year-old has been missing since October 16. With her mother, her partner and her little sister, she was at the Blowholes campsite on the coast near Macleod, around 900 kilometers north of the regional capital Perth. According to the mother’s statement, they noticed around 6:00 a.m. that the blonde girl and her sleeping bag had disappeared from one of the two rooms of the family tent. Her daughter slept there next to her little sister.

The tent zipper was opened to a height that the four-year-old could not have reached herself. Since then there has been no trace of the child. The Blowholes – sea caves from which the surf splashes – are a popular destination on the Indian Ocean.

“The worst nightmare of all parents”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison thanked the police via Twitter. “What wonderful, relieving news. Cleo Smith was found home safe and sound, ”he wrote.

Parliamentarian Tanya Plibersek said on Twitter: “What this family has been through is the worst nightmare of all parents.”

The sympathy was huge after the girl’s disappearance – not only in Australia. On Instagram, people from Scotland, the USA and Germany, among others, tried to encourage the family. “Please don’t give up! Our fingers crossed that she will be found healthy. All the best from Germany! ”Wrote one user.

The desperate parents had repeatedly addressed the public with dramatic appeals – in the hope of convincing the perpetrator or perpetrators to release the girl. According to the evidence, there was only one plausible explanation: Little Cleo was kidnapped.

100 officials in the special commission

At the weekend, the police announced that around 200 reports of possible sightings of the child had been received and that large amounts of video material had been uploaded from surveillance cameras. Neither the mother, the significant other, nor the birth father of the girl, who lives near Perth, are considered suspects. The police had suspected that she had been kidnapped by an “opportunist” perpetrator, as the Australian news agency AAP reported. There were around 100 officials in the special commission.

Cleo’s disappearance had awakened dark memories of the case of the then three-year-old British Maddie McCann, who disappeared from an apartment complex in Portugal on May 3, 2007 without a trace. The girl’s unexplained fate continues to make headlines today. When investigators surprisingly announced last year that a German was suspected of murder, there was at least hope of late certainty. So far, however, there has been no breakthrough in the investigation. dpa