Australian security forces have located alive a four-year-old girl who had disappeared 18 days ago from a camping area in the state of Western Australia, without the circumstances in which the events occurred are at the moment clear.
The girl, named Cleo Smith, disappeared from the Blowholes area. Her track is lost on October 16 and the authorities were working with the kidnapping hypothesis because the store was supposedly blocked to a height inaccessible to the minor, according to the Australian network ABC News.
The state government offered a million Australian dollars (about 642,000 euros) for information that would allow to find the whereabouts of the little girl, within the framework of one of the largest investigations in the recent history of Australia, developed against the clock.
A tip received on Tuesday led as early as Wednesday to a home in Carnarvon, just a six-minute drive from where Cleo’s family resides. The girl was found inside this house, alone, and the images released by the police both from the moment of the discovery and already in the hospital show her apparently healthy, even smiling.
The Police have taken into custody the tenant of the house, a 36-year-old man of whom no further details have been disclosed. The authorities have not charged him with any charges and, as they have explained, he is currently collaborating in the investigations.
One of the agents who located the minor, Cameron Blaine, has told the media about the emotional reunion with Cleo, who asked her name up to three times to make sure that it was indeed her. “My name is Cleo,” he finished answering, as shown in a video released by the Police.
The finding has led to shared messages of relief from family members, neighbors and political authorities. “Our family is together again,” wrote the girl’s mother, Ellie Smith, on social media, while Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also welcomed the “wonderful” news.
