As time passes, new details emerge about the family living in the forest Palmoli (Chieti). A year ago the mother of three left her home and fled to Bologna, losing track of investigators and social services trying to find her. intervene in these cases once the children are small they had been drunk and their living conditions in a kind of hut, without light and water, had been assessed. Il Centro newspaper said that the woman’s decision was made out of fear that social workers would intervene in the family and remove the children, as has happened in recent days. That Juvenile Court L’Aquila, after a year of observation and evaluation, temporarily suspended parental rights and placed the children, ages 6 and 8, in a community setting.
A judicial file was also opened on the matter which recounts, step by step, the woman’s escape with her children. The only one left in the Palmoli farmhouse is the father, who protects his wife by providing misleading information to investigators. In one case, he said the woman had returned to England with her children while he remained there to “resolve the situation”. In mid-November, it was she who contacted the police, saying that she would “absolutely not reveal her position” because of “threats that they would take our children from us.”
This email was followed by others, until, in early December, a lawyer advised the family to “don’t hide from institutions“. But the appeal remained unheard. It was not until Christmas that he appeared again, this time with an email to the police in which he revealed the real address where he and his children were: Valsamoggia, Bologna. However, his return to Palmoli could not prevent the process from continuing as required by the regulations protecting minors.
The article “When the mother of children in the forest runs away hiding in the Bolognese region and the father covers up her escape” is from Il Fatto Quotidiano.
