More than a thousand days of hell: this is how the three children trapped in garbage in Oviedo were rescued.

BarcelonaThe Oviedo Local Police arrested a married couple on Monday for having kept their children locked up in their house on the outskirts of the town for more than three years. The children, 8-year-old twins and a 10-year-old boy, were living in the two-story house in unsanitary conditions. This Wednesday, the judge ordered the parents, a 53-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman, who had rented the house since October 2021, to be held in provisional detention without bail. Their custody was also removed, and the children were relocated to a juvenile center, where they will be housed while their situation is determined.

As explained by the chief commissioner of the municipal police, Francisco Javier Lozano, the investigation began on April 14, when a neighbor verbally alerted the City Council that children were not attending school in a house near hers. She also never saw them in the garden or outside. "Discreet surveillance" was undertaken that same day. Thus, the officers confirmed that there was hardly any movement in the house: the blinds were kept down and no one was going outside.

However, during the days of surveillance, they detected a peculiarity. Although only one person was registered at the address, the volume of grocery delivery orders seemed to indicate that there were more people inside. With these indications, combined with witnesses from neighbors, an operation was carried out just after 11 a.m. on Monday, during which the three minors were found wearing masks and diapers. They were dirty and clearly unhappy. As for the house, it was full of debris, and the children's rooms had two cribs and a very small bed, although the children were aged 8 and 10. According to the commissioner himself and as reported by Efe, they have no evidence that the parents failed to pay the monthly rent, but neither did they. Therefore, there is speculation that both worked from their own home. It's also unclear what motivated them to move to Oviedo or the reasons behind the closure of the house. Police also found large quantities of medication inside.

According to police sources, the first thing the children did when they saw the light outside was "take a deep breath."