‘House Of Horrors’: German Kids, Locked Up By Parents Over COVID Fear, Rescued

In a shocking incident, three German children living in Spain were rescued from a Covid lockdown ‘house of horrors’ after being forced for years by their parents to stay there even after pandemic restrictions were relaxed.

Yes! You read that right. As per The New York Post, citing a local outlet El Comercio, the siblings—8-year-old twins and a 10-year-old—were eventually evacuated from the home in Oviedo, Spain’s northwest, on Monday by the officials after being locked inside since 2021.

(Two children are led out of the home after being locked inside for years.)

(Inside the home where the children were kept for years.)

The official said, “As soon as we brought them out, all three kids began to breathe deeply as if they had never been outside before."

Their parents, a 53-year-old German man and his 48-year-old American wife, who also had a German passport, were detained and charged with domestic violence, habitual psychological abuse, and child abandonment, according to the police.

As per the officials, both parents were allegedly suffering from ‘COVID Syndrome’ and forced the entire family to live in extreme lockdown for several years and with no connection to the outside world.

The police got to know about the family after their neighbours reported that the children living inside hadn’t been going to school for a very long time.

Talking about the kids, an officer told the portal El Mundo, “The kids were in terrible condition. It was absolutely obscene. They were not starving; they had been fed. But they were also dirty and disconnected from reality, and not just because they didn’t attend school. When we took them out of the house and into the garden, where they wouldn’t go outside, they noticed a snail and freaked out."

According to the local outlet, police discovered that the family rented out the home in October 2021, with only the father’s name registered. Upon investigation, officers discovered that only the father used to leave the house to pick up grocery deliveries and mail, while neighbours informed police they hadn’t seen the family leave since December 2021.

Ref: ‘House Of Horrors’: German Kids, Locked Up By Parents Over COVID Fear, Rescued