Lisbon: A heartless mother abandoned her two young children on a roadside in Portugal. A Portuguese court has detained a French woman and her partner pending trial after they allegedly blindfolded their 4 and 5-year-old sons and left them on a roadside in southern Portugal, telling them to find hidden toys before abandoning them and fleeing in a car.

According to Thai News Agency, this incident occurred on May 11th. A Good Samaritan found the two boys, aged 4 and 5, crying by a roadside near Alc¡cer do Salle, about 100 kilometers south of Lisbon. The boys were carrying backpacks containing only water, food, and spare clothes, but no identification. They told authorities that their mother and her partner had parked on the roadside, taken them out, blindfolded them, and pretended they were playing a game of hide-and-seek. After some time, when the blindfolds were removed, they realized their mother and the car had disappeared. A medical examination found the boys to be in good health. Authorities have placed them with temporary foster families in Lisbon while awaiting repatriation to France.

Previously, the children's estranged father reported them missing from their home in Colmar, eastern France, on May 11th, leading to a European arrest warrant being issued by France. Portuguese police later tracked down the children's mother, 41, and her partner, 55-year-old Marc B., at a cafe in Fatima, about 170 kilometers from where the children were abandoned, last Thursday (May 21st). Police described the couple as showing indifference and no remorse.

A judge in Setºbal ordered the couple to be detained without bail pending trial on charges of child abandonment and endangering the child. The man also faces additional charges of child abuse. Local media reported that while held separately in a Portuguese prison, the couple shouted insults at each other violently across their cells.

This case garnered significant attention from French and Portuguese media due to the couple's backgrounds. The woman identified herself on social media and LinkedIn as a sexologist specializing in trauma therapy and human developmental dynamics, while the man was a former French police officer who resigned in 2010 and frequently shared conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic content online.