Authorities in Oviedo, northwest Spain, have intervened in a distressing case involving three siblings who were reportedly confined indoors by their parents under extreme lockdown conditions for over three years, well beyond the official end of COVID-19 restrictions.
The children-8-year-old twins and their 10-year-old brother-were removed from their home earlier this week in the Fitora-Toleo area after neighbors alerted officials to their prolonged absence from school and public life.
Investigators revealed that since 2021, the children had been kept inside the house and were only permitted outside while wearing face masks. Upon rescue, the siblings exhibited profound astonishment at the outside world, reacting with amazement to simple natural elements such as grass and snails. “As soon as we got them out, all three children began to breathe deeply, as if they had never been outside before,” said one investigator.
Though physically fed, the children were found in poor condition-dirty and socially isolated, with no contact with peers or access to education. Their parents, a 48-year-old German-American woman and her 53-year-old German husband, were arrested and charged with child abandonment and domestic abuse. Authorities believe the couple suffered from “COVID syndrome,” a psychological condition marked by extreme, prolonged fear of infection, which led them to impose strict isolation on their family.
An investigator described the scene as “absolutely outrageous,” emphasizing the children’s detachment from reality was not solely due to school absence but total social isolation. “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,” the investigator added.
This case has sparked concern over the lasting psychological impacts of the pandemic and the dangers of unchecked fear leading to child neglect and abuse.
