The skeletal remains of little Émile Soleil, a two and a half year old boy whose disappearance shocked France last July, have been found, as reported this Sunday by the French Prosecutor's Office.
The discovery occurred this Saturday near the village where he had disappeared, called Haut-Vernet and located in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (southeast of France).
A DNA analysis confirmed this Sunday "that they were the bones of the child Émile Soleil", according to the Aix-en-Provence Prosecutor's Office, cited by the public broadcaster FranceInfo.
In the coming days, the French Gendarmerie will be in charge of carrying out complementary investigations at the scene of the discovery, as well as analyzing the child's bones, to try to clarify the circumstances surrounding the death.
Émile Soleil had disappeared from his family home last July without a trace. The investigators initially only had the testimony of two neighbors who had declared having seen the boy from afar leaving his home and walking alone down a descending street.
No hypothesis was ruled out, although from the beginning the authorities pointed out that it would be very difficult to find him alive in the case of a disappearance on his own, once the first days had passed.
Haut-Vernet, located at 1,200 meters above sea level, is a community where only 25 people live and is surrounded by forests and fields.
