Mother arrested after children held captive in Alicante for seven years

A SWISS woman has been arrested and charged with keeping her two children captive in their Alicante province home for seven years.

The Guardia Civil said that the woman was detained on Saturday after the woman’s 17-year-old daughter managed to sneak an email to the ANAR foundation which is devoted to helping children escape abuse.

She and her 15-year-old sibling had reportedly not been to school or allowed any contact with the outside world since moving to Spain in 2009.

“The minor’s signatures during police proceedings were exactly the same as those on their Swiss ID cards from seven years ago, the writing looks like that of a small child who has not developed his writing,” a spokesman for the Guardia Civil in Alicante told AFP.

The abuse had apparently begun when the children were just toddlers in Switzerland. The detained woman is 49 years old and of Spanish descent. Her 30-year-old partner has been charged with covering up her crimes.

Her daughter has told police that they were frequently assaulted and warned that the police would rape and torture them if they ever went for help.