ASUNCION (Paraguay), May 31 — Paraguayan authorities announced yesterday they are looking for two German children that arrived in the country in November, in each case without the consent of one parent.
Paraguayan Andreas Rainer Egler, 46, and his wife Anna Maria Egler, 35, travelled to Paraguay with his daughter Clara, 10, and her daughter Lara Valentina Blank, 11.
But neither Clara’s mother, Anne Maja Reiniger-Egler, nor Lara’s father Filip Blank had given their consent to the journey and now the whereabouts of the two children is unknown.
“From now we will intensify the search for the two girls,” said Mario Vallejos, head of the anti-kidnapping police unit in a press conference alongside Reiniger-Egler.
The two girls arrived in Paraguay in late November 2021 and were last seen in mid-January, Paraguayan authorities said.
“Andreas, please put an end to this nightmare, this is not a normal life. Contact us. Girls cannot run away their whole lives,” said a sobbing Reiniger-Egler.
“Have a heart for our girls,” she said, offering to drop her accusations if she could just be reunited with her daughter.
“For me the important thing is that they come back.” The runaway family is believed to have hidden among anti-vaccine German colonies in Paraguay, said Reiniger-Egler’s lawyer Stephan Schultheiss.
“It is a case of parental authority violation or kidnapping. Both (parents) are wanted by German justice.” Vallejos said five months of investigation had been fruitless and said the girls’ pictures would be published.
Paraguay’s authorities denounced the “secrecy and lack of collaboration in the German communities in the areas where the girls were seen.” — Reuters
