Spain arrests couple suspected of confining kids to home for three years

The children - two eight-year-old twins and a 10-year-old - were not educated, "neglected" and lived "surrounded by rubbish", police in the northwestern Asturias region told a press conference.

After a resident reported the home earlier this month, police said they discovered that more people lived there than the one man listed on the civil register, including children not attending school.

A key clue was the large amount of shopping delivered to the home, which according to neighbours nobody left since it was leased in October 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We were all affected by the Covid syndrome... we can in some way speculate on what may have led a family to be locked up like that for a long time," said police commissioner Francisco Javier Lozano García.

The couple had stockpiled a large amount of medicine, police added.

Local media reported the children were found wearing nappies and three surgical masks each, with the father asking police to put on a mask before they searched the house.

"The fact that they were wearing masks may be anecdotal or may have a basis," said Lozano García.

According to La Razón daily, the smell inside the house was revolting and all the blinds were shut. When the children left the property, they touched the grass "with fascination, as if they had never been outdoors before".

A doctor treated the siblings, who were then transferred to a child care centre.

Police arrested the couple in the city of Oviedo on Monday and an investigation will determine how and why they came to live in Spain.