The case of the two German girls kidnapped by one of their parents and taken to Paraguay without the consent of their respective ex-partners will have a happy ending. The couple who fled to South America are willing to surrender. An Interpol search warrant weighed on them for violation of parental authority and kidnapping.
“Life on the run was not what they wanted, neither the girls nor their parents,” said the lawyer for the mother of one of them. According to Ingo Bott of the Düsseldorf-based law firm Plan A, the couple will surrender to Paraguayan authorities in the coming days.
Bott has been essential in solving the case. He has acted as a mediator, on the spot, and has managed to get the couple to reason. The girls will return to Germany shortly.
The father of one of the girls and the mother of the other are remarried to each other, they fled to Paraguay without the consent of their respective ex-partners. The kidnapping occurred in November, when the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic raised an anti-vaccine wave despite the fact that vaccination was never mandatory. The couple tried to prevent the other two parents from looking for the girls by leaving a suicide note.
The trail of the girls appeared in Paraguay, where deniers and anti-vaccines from around the world, including nearly 2,000 Germans, have fled the restrictions imposed by the government to stop the pandemic. The track has been an abandoned vehicle used by the parents in Bella Vista, about 400 kilometers south of Asunción.
The mother of one of the girls, Anne Maja Reiniger-Egler, went there to ask for the support of the public in the search for Clara Magdalena Egler (10) -her daughter- and Lara Valentina Blank (11).
The Trafficking Unit of the Public Ministry and the anti-kidnapping department of the National Police have assumed the investigation of the case of the little girls, who arrived in the country accompanied by Andreas Rainer Egler – Clara’s father – and Anna Maria Egler, Lara’s mother. It was not easy to establish contact with them.
“There are many German communities here and almost all of them are very closed, which is why the investigation is so difficult,” explained the deputy director of the Paraguayan police, Mario Vallejos.
German emigration to Paraguay skyrocketed last year, chasing a dream of absolute freedom, without anticovid measures, far from the alleged dictatorship like the one in Germany. It is a new form of emigration that, like the one that occurred after World War II, in most cases follows its own rules and is always protected by secrecy. This explains why the Paraguayan police authorities denounced the secrecy and lack of cooperation of the German communities in the regions where the girls were seen.
The plaintiff parents’ lawyers have not disclosed the details of the conversations held with the other party for the sake of the girls. The important thing is that in a few days, they will be back.
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