A family living in self-sufficiency was discovered in Maraussan, in Hérault, on Wednesday, September 25. An elderly couple and their two children, 66-year-old twins, were found. The latter are in a worrying state.
Simple reports from neighbors that resulted in the discovery of a family living in self-sufficiency and in the most worrying conditions. The police discovered a household of four people showing several signs of distress on Wednesday, September 25 during an intervention carried out at the request of the mayor in Maraussan, a small town located northwest of Béziers, in Hérault, reports Free Midi.
The mayor of Maraussan, Marlène Puche, thought she would send the municipal police on a simple neighborhood dispute, after a resident reported harassment from a neighbor, and during the intervention nothing seemed suspicious in the elderly couple except for a few signs of unsanitary conditions. It was necessary to wait for a new report and a second intervention by the police accompanied by a social worker to shed light on the living conditions of the family who apparently lived under the authority of the matriarch.
When the police arrived, the mother appeared agitated, “screaming at the top of her lungs” according to the description given by Free Midi. The husband was found “lying on a deck chair, very emaciated, with a head injury”, but it was the couple’s two children who attracted attention. The two daughters, twins, aged 66, were found prostrate in their bedroom, mute and skeletal. A witness to the scene compared them to “living corpses” to the local newspaper: “They were sitting against each other in a foetal position”. They have been living in the family home for years after being forcibly repatriated, reports The Free Midi.
In addition to the worrying state of health of the twins and the husband, the interior of the home suggests “total distress”. The four members of the household lived in self-sufficiency and had not consulted a doctor for around fifty years, according to the Occitan newspaper. The firefighters and the Samu teams therefore intervened to take care of the four individuals. The mother was evacuated to the hospital in Béziers after heated exchanges with the police and emergency services. The husband was taken to a nursing home, while the two girls must be placed under guardianship, because “totally incapable of taking care of themselves and even feeding themselves” according to the neighbors.