Brazilian police have released a woman and her two children after her husband held them for 17 years in appalling conditions in Rio de Janeiro, where they were severely malnourished.
“The two young men were tied up and emaciated,” Rio de Janeiro’s military police, who arrested the head of the family, said.
Police received a report of the case from an unidentified person and carried out an operation on Thursday in the popular Guaratiba area in the west of the city.
Local media reported that the woman and her two sons, aged 19 and 22, were taken to hospital shortly after their release, suffering from “severe dehydration and malnutrition.”
According to the G1 news website, the mother told authorities that she and her two sons sometimes went without food for three days at a time and were constantly subjected to physical and psychological abuse.
The mother quoted Luis Antonio Santos Silva, her 23-year-old husband, as saying to her: “You must stay with me until the end, you will not leave here until you die.”
Brazilian media published photos of two adult boys.
A neighbor of the family told the local G1 website: “When we saw the condition of the two boys, we thought they would not live to see next week. I tried to talk to my mother in the ambulance, but she couldn’t speak. because she was too weak.”
Neighbors told authorities that the father was nicknamed “DJ” because he played music to drown out the screams of his victims.
Some point out that this case was reported two years ago, but there was no response from the authorities.
Source: AFP.