A Brazilian woman and her two children were released by police in an advanced state of malnutrition after being held in appalling conditions for 17 years by her husband in Rio de Janeiro, a police source said on Friday.
“The two young men, believed to be the sons of the woman and the suspect, were tied up, dirty and malnourished,” Rio’s military police, who arrested the father, said in a statement.
The authorities were alerted by an anonymous complaint and the police operation took place this Thursday, in Guaratiba, a popular neighborhood in the west of this city. The woman and her two children, aged 19 and 22 according to local media, were hospitalized shortly after her release, in a state of “severe dehydration and malnutrition,” the municipal health services reported.
Constantly attacked by the father of the family.
According to the G1 news website, the mother of the family told the authorities that they sometimes went three days without eating and that they were constantly subjected to physical and psychological attacks.
“You have to stay with me until the end, you’re not leaving here until you’re dead,” said her husband, to whom she was married for 23 years.
The images reproduced in the Brazilian media show the two children, adults, with the appearance of adolescents due to their malnutrition.
“They wouldn’t have survived another week”
“When we saw the conditions in which the two children were, we thought that they would not survive another week. I tried to talk to the mother in the ambulance, but she couldn’t make the slightest sound because she was so weak.” a Guaratiba resident told the G1 site.
Neighbors told authorities that the alleged torturer was nicknamed “DJ” because he used to turn up the music to drown out the screams of his victims.
Some say that complaints had already been made two years ago, without the authorities intervening.
Source: BFM TV
