Locals, the military and emergency services are all involved in the search
A major search is underway after a 2-year-old boy went missing from his grandparents’ house in rural France.
Police do not believe the boy, identified only by his first name, Émile, was kidnapped, but believe he went missing after wandering off alone.
Émile has not been seen since Saturday afternoon when he was playing at his grandparents’ house in the south of France.
The family was on holiday in the small village of Le Vernet – which has a population of only a few hundred people – in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence when he vanished.
Police are now racing against time to find the missing boy, with more than 100 police officers and firefighters mobilised for the search, ITV News reports.
It is understood that the family was getting ready to go out for the day before Émile disappeared. His grandparents went to put the young boy in the car when they noticed he wandered off.
They immediately contacted emergency services and officers have been searching for the young boy since.
A search party of emergency service and local residents covered an area of 5km in the initial search, but were unable to find the youngster.
Investigating officers believe he “took advantage of this fleeting moment of inattention to leave”.
Footage shared on Twitter shows military personnel arriving in the area to help with the search.
The Mayor of Le Vernet François Balique said the village was “in dismay.”
He told French TV: “It’s a small village with 20 or so houses … we see everything. He could have gone some distance and perhaps got lost or was hiding.”
“I don’t understand why we haven’t found little Émile.
“We don’t understand what could have happened, the villagers are in dismay.
The search has been extended and helicopters are now being used in a bid to find the child. He was spotted by two people near his grandparents’ house but they “lost sight” of the child, LBC reports.
A helicopter, sniffer dogs and thermic camera drones are also being used to help find Émile, and a voice-recording featuring the boy’s mother has also been broadcast in the area, but no trace of him has yet been found.
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