For weeks Spain had worried about the fate of the sisters Olivia and Anna. Her father kidnapped her. Now six-year-old Olivia has been found dead in the sea. The horror is huge.
Madrid (AP) – The hope for a happy end to a dramatic family dispute, which has kept all of Spain in suspense for around six weeks, broke three nautical miles off the northeast coast of Tenerife.
A police diving robot discovered the body of six-year-old Olivia on the seabed at a depth of about one thousand meters. The little one had been missing together with her father and one-year-old sister Anna since the end of April. The father had left the children after an argument with his ex-wife, the daughter of a German emigrant.
The body of little Olivia stowed in a sports bag was found and recovered on Thursday evening in the Atlantic about three nautical miles off the northeast coast of Tenerife, reported the TV station RTVE and other media on Friday, citing the Guardia Civil police unit. The Canary Islands authorities confirmed the find at the request of the German Press Agency.
The horror in Spain was enormous, also in the Madrid government palace. “I can not imagine the pain of the mother of little Anna and Olivia, who disappeared in Tenerife, in view of the terrible news that we have just received,” wrote the socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Twitter. Thousands of people expressed their indignation on social networks and expressed their condolences to Mother Beatrice. The sad find was also a big topic in cafés and pubs.
Shortly after the discovery of the body was made known, groups of women’s rights activists called on the Spaniards to protest against domestic violence, which was predominantly male. People should gather in front of town halls across the country on Friday evening at 10 p.m. The radio station Cadena Ser recalled that in the past eight years alone 39 children were murdered by their father or their mother’s partner. “Domestic violence is our worst security problem,” Vice Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told journalists on Friday.
Mother Beatriz posted an audio recording on Instagram on Thursday and said she was hopeful. “I still think super positively because I know that someone will soon recognize them and they will call us and say that the girls are on their way to us again,” she had said. She thanked the Spaniards for the solidarity and support and expressed her conviction that the father had “not committed any madness”.
After the body was discovered, the mother did not make a statement on Friday for the time being. The authorities suspect that further very bad news is to be expected. It is feared that the 37-year-old killed both children and committed suicide, reported RTVE, citing investigators.
The bag with the corpse was tied to the anchor of one of the father’s boats, it was said. The empty boat had been found floating in the sea some time ago. The police had also found traces of blood there. The search for the two still missing people will continue, the police said.
The father and the girls were reported missing by the mother on April 27. The man called his ex-wife a little later and told her: “You will never see the girls and me again.” According to media reports, he also sent messages to friends via Whatsapp, which read like goodbye messages.
The father was seen by witnesses at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife late in April loading bags into his boat. These scenes were also captured by surveillance cameras. The mother, who also posted videos of the girls on Instagram after her daughters disappeared, had previously assumed and hoped that her former husband was planning to flee to an African country with the children in the boat.
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Tweet from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez
Message in El Pais
Report of calls for protests across the country
Aussagen with Carmen Calvo
