Missing French toddler – latest: ‘Only hope is Emile has been taken and is alive,’ Le Vernet mayor says

Last evening, it was reported that a vehicle with blood on it had been found amid the ongoing search for missing French toddler Emile, who disappeared from his grandparents’ home in Le Vernet last Saturday.

In a statement to La Provence, local prosecutor Rémy Avon said analysis had revealed the sample “was not himan blood but animal blood”.

Emile has now been missing for over five days, as investigators admitted they have “no clue” what happened to the boy.

Emile has now been missing for over 96 hours, after he vanished from his grandparents’ property in Haut-Vernet on Saturday.

Here are some pictures from the quaint village in the south of France, where an extensive search for Emile was underway before it was called off on Wednesday:

According to local news reports, a final plot of land around Haut-Vernet will be combed through in the search for Emile on Thursday,

The operation could last until around 4pm, French channel BFMTV reported.

Earlier this morning, local prosecutor Rémy Avon said in a statement said the massive search for Emile had not yielded any clues in solving the mystery of his disappearance last weekend, on Saturday.

As the search continues for two-year-old Emile, a local mayor has reflected on the decades-old case of a three-year-old that went missing in Ganagobie, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in 1989.

“It reminds us of a lot of things. I sent a little message of support to the mayor of Vernet, François Balique”, Ganagobie mayor Sylvie Belmonte told La Provence, referencing the disappearance of 3-year-old Yannis Moré in May 1989.

“I was town clerk and I took part in the search to try to find little Yannis”, he added.

Yannis had disappeared whilst playing with his three brothers, prompting a search of one hundred gendarmes, soldiers, firefighters and volunteers. However, there were no witnesses, no clues and no suspect.

“We had been settled in Ganagobie for 18 months... I saw them having fun from the window”, Yannis’s mother, Pascaline Moré, told La Provence in 2016. “We give ourselves hope”, she added.

A close family member has spoken of the close-knit family missing two-year-old Emile comes from.

“They always do everything together”, a close family member told La Provence, adding that Emile’s mother is the eldest of ten siblings.

“You know, when you have enough children to form two teams to play ball, there is no need to mix.”

Locals have described the family of missing French toddler Emile as “very quiet and pious” and “very religious”.

The two-year-old boy’s family “goes to mass and sings religious hymns in Latin”, residents told local network BFM DICI.

“They are very good people. A happy, carefree and problem-free family, very loving and very believing. It seems incredible, inconceivable”, said Therese, a resident of La Bouilladisse, where the toddler lives with his family.

A desperate search is underway for a toddler who vanished from a garden while on holiday with his grandparents in the south of France.

Two-year-old Emile, whose surname is unknown, was playing in the garden of a property in Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence on Saturday when he went missing.

His family was preparing to go out for the day when they noticed Emile had vanished, François Balique, the mayor of Le Vernet, told local media.

“He took advantage of this fleeting moment [of inattention] to leave,” he said of the boy’s disappearance. “His grandparents realised he was no longer there when they went to put him in the car.”

Matt Mathers reports.

Jean-Marcel, a friend of the grandparents of the missing toddler, said the child could not have “evaporated” from the hamlet, which is used to seeing children playing freely in the street.

“On Saturday night I heard the news on the phone and said to myself that they will find the boy,” the man, a resident of Haut-Vernet, told local network BFM DICI.

“Then afterwards, when 24 hours, 48 ​​hours passed and you realize that a two-and-a-half-year-old can’t evaporate like that, it’s a big worry.”

The French village of Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has dominated headlines following the disappearance of a young boy this weekend.

Emile, aged two-and-a-half, was playing in the garden of his grandparent’s house when he vanished on Saturday afternoon.

While hope for Emile remains, this isn’t the first time the sleepy village has been rocked by heart-wrenching events.

Locals speaking to the media said they are worried their village may be “cursed” while recalling it was the site of a gruesome murder and a devastating plane crash that left 149 people dead.

More here.

French police have reportedly admitted to searching through masses of public data after failing to find leads in the hunt for the missing two-year-old toddler.

Local prosecutor Remy Avon said the police “have no clue, no information, no element that can help us understand this disappearance”, according to The Mirror.

He stressed that there had been no progress made since the child’s disappearance. “We are at the same point as the day before yesterday after receiving the two testimonies,” Mr Avon said.

“We are really pushing the investigations on the ground as much as we can.”