Children Locked In Home By "Covid Syndrome" Parents Rescued By Spain Cops

Three German children living in Spain have been rescued from a Covid lockdown “house of horrors” after being forced for years to stay inside long after pandemic restrictions ended. According to SkyNews, the siblings – 8-year-old twins and a 10-year-old – were locked up inside for three years by their parents following the final wave of the Covid pandemic. They were rescued from a home in Oviedo, Spain, on Monday, and their parents were arrested and charged with domestic violence with habitual psychological abuse and child abandonment. 

According to SkyNews, the children were locked inside the house since 2021. Police in Spain launched an investigation after neighbours filed a complaint about children residing in the home who haven’t been attending school. They discovered that the house had been rented out by the family in October 2021, and only the name of the father was registered on the home. Locals also told the officers that they had not seen anyone enter or leave the property since December 2021. 

Then, when officers approached the house on April 28, the mother told the officers to “be careful” since her children were “very sick”. 

Once inside, cops found the home filled with trash and a large number of medications and masks, as well as other items, which officers deemed “a clearly unsanitary situation that could put the health and safety of the minors at risk”. The three children were also reported to be sleeping in cribs, which officers said were defaced with drawings of monsters and dolls. 

“The children were in terrible shape. It was absolutely outrageous. Not malnourished, because they were fed. But they were also dirty… (and) completely cut off from reality, and not just because they didn’t go to school. When we took them out of the house, into the garden, where they wouldn’t even go outside, they saw a snail and went crazy, freaked out,” one police officer said, per the outlet. 

Speaking at a news conference, Oviedo Police Chief Javier Lozano described the property as a “house of horrors”. “We have given three children back their lives,” he said, adding, “We have dismantled the house of horrors.”

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After being rescued, the three children were taken to the National Human Rights Centre for a medical evaluation and then placed into the custody of the Ministry of Welfare, which placed them in a juvenile centre, People reported. 

The parents, identified as a 53-year-old German man and his 48-year-old American wife, who also owned a German passport, are being held in pretrial detention without bail. 

“We’ve all been affected by Covid syndrome and what the pandemic has brought, and we can speculate about what led a family to live locked up for so long,” Police Chief Lozano said during the press conference.