A local couple’s evening drive along a remote Portuguese road turned into a rescue mission after they spotted two small, sobbing boys wandering alone in the dirt — abandoned, blindfolded, and completely unaware their parents were never coming back.
Barthelemy, age five, and his three-year-old brother Zacharie were discovered Tuesday at approximately 7 p.m. along the N235 highway, a rural stretch of road connecting the towns of Alcacer do Sal and Comporta in southern Portugal.
Residents Eugenia and Artur Quintas were the first to reach the children. What the boys carried with them told an immediate story — a spare change of clothes, two pieces of fruit, and two small bottles of water.
Artur Quintas described the scene. “They were crying, they were terrified. They were crying and calling for their father,” he said.
The boys were visibly injured. Both were covered in dirt and bruises, one had hurt his knee, and neither child carried a single identifying document.
The Quintas family brought the boys inside their home and called police, who arrived quickly and transported the children to Setúbal Hospital for a complete medical evaluation.
Doctors cleared both boys physically, and a subsequent toxicology report confirmed neither child had been drugged.
Investigators began piecing together the boys’ story through questioning. The children revealed they had come from France — and what they described next stunned authorities.
The boys told police their mother and stepfather had informed them they were participating in a game designed to “drive away the devil.”
Their mother, 41-year-old Marine, believed to originate from Colmar in eastern France, along with her partner Marc, placed blindfolds over both children’s eyes before leading them deep into a wooded area.
The adults instructed the boys that they could only remove the blindfolds once they had located a knife the couple claimed to have buried in the ground — a knife they were told to use to cut themselves free.
The children clawed through the dirt for several minutes. Barthelemy eventually pulled the blindfolds off. The forest was empty. Their parents were gone.
Still under the impression they were playing a game, the two brothers wandered the Portuguese wilderness alone for hours. Temperatures in that region of Portugal regularly climb to 30 degrees Celsius during the day at this time of year.
Artur Quintas recounted what the older boy told him.
“The oldest one told me that he and his brother had gotten lost in the forest and that their father and mother had left without taking them,” he said. Quintas added: “I realised right away that they had been abandoned by the backpacks. When I saw the way the backpacks were packed, I knew they had been abandoned.”
Through the French embassy in Portugal, authorities confirmed the boys had no blood relatives in the country. The children were placed into foster care and are scheduled to be transferred to the French embassy.
A cross-border investigation involving both Portuguese and French law enforcement established that Marine had vanished with the two boys roughly two weeks before they were found, departing on a lengthy road trip that would end with the children alone in the woods.
The family crossed into Portugal from Spain on May 11 through the Bragança border crossing.
They traveled over 310 miles, moving through the Miranda do Corvo region before pushing south toward Alcacer do Sal, where records show they stayed at a local hotel — located just 12 miles from where the boys were ultimately abandoned.
Back in France, the boys’ maternal grandmother had already reported the children missing, telling police their own mother had taken them.
The children’s biological father, separated from Marine, filed a separate child abduction report. Colmar prosecutor Jean Richert told Le Parisien of the father: “He’s like everyone else, he doesn’t understand.”
French authorities confirmed prior knowledge of Marc, who is believed to suffer from a psychiatric disorder. French prosecutors have since launched a child neglect case.
Meanwhile, Portuguese courts opened an urgent legal procedure in the family and juvenile court in Santiago do Cacem.
Portuguese police have stopped short of formally classifying the case as an abduction, with a spokesman stating: “All possibilities are being considered.”
Child psychologist Melanie Tavares, speaking to CNN Portugal, issued a stark warning about what lies ahead for the two boys. “It’s the feeling of abandonment, of being lost, unprotected, of not having familiar resources to ultimately soothe the fear,” she said.
Tavares identified a range of expected symptoms, including severe sleep disruption, changes in eating behavior, persistent irritability, and withdrawal from others.
She stated: “This will obviously bring, in the coming days, some symptoms to which those caring for these children will have to be very attentive.”
The psychologist warned that the use of a fabricated game by the parents could permanently alter the children’s ability to trust adult figures.
On the permanence of the experience, Tavares was direct: “This is a trauma that will remain, just like when we get a tattoo. It stays for life.”
