French police searching for a two-year-old boy who went missing from his grandparents’ garden in the French Alps on Saturday say they have no clues as to what could have happened to him.
The toddler, Emile, was last seen walking down the street of his grandparents’ house by two witnesses on Saturday afternoon, a prosecutor said.
The house is located in a remote mountain outpost with only two dozen inhabitants just outside Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence between Grenoble and Nice.
Local police have entered every building of the settlement.
Some 500 volunteers have also helped with the search, looking for Emile in the forests and fields that surround the village, the local prefect’s office said on Twitter.
“At this point, we don’t have any clues allowing us to follow any particular theory (on his whereabouts)", the local public prosecutor told Franceinfo Radio.
French authorities at the weekend opened a telephone hotline and released a photograph of the boy, with a yellow flower tucked behind his ear.
The local mayor, Francois Balique told French TV: “The family was getting ready to leave the house to go on an outing. He took advantage of this fleeting moment to leave.
“His grandparents realised he was no longer there when they went to put him in the car."
BFM TV said authorities were using a recorded voice message by Emilie’s mother, broadcast over loudspeakers from a helicopter, in the area of the search.
A volunteer who came to help look for Emile, Roxanne, told the AFP news agency on Monday: “We took part in a big search this morning with 50 other people.
“There was a gap of two metres (7 feet) between each of us, we looked in the fields, and in the woods.
“We looked out for the smallest clue, maybe an item of clothing or a shoe he could have lost.”
