Enlarge image
Civil Guard boat in the port of Tenerife: The search for two missing persons continues
Photo: --- / dpa
Search teams have found a missing six-year-old dead in the sea off Tenerife.
The corpse stowed in a sports bag was discovered and recovered on Thursday evening in the Atlantic at a depth of about a thousand meters on the ocean floor with the help of a diving robot.
This was reported by the TV station RTVE and the newspaper »El País«, citing the police.
The site was therefore three nautical miles off the northeast coast of Tenerife.
The Canary Islands authorities confirmed the find on request.
The father and sister of the six year old are still being sought.
Authorities suspect that the father kidnapped the two girls about a month and a half ago after an argument with the girls' mother of German descent, who lives in Tenerife.
From this he lived separately.
Police found blood on the boat
The bag with the six-year-old's body was tied to the anchor of a 37-year-old father's boat.
The empty boat had been found floating in the sea some time ago.
The police had also found traces of blood there.
The father and the girls were reported missing by the mother on April 27.
The man is said to have called his ex-wife a little later and told her that she would never see the girls and him again.
TV station RTVE reported that investigators feared the man killed and committed suicide both children.
The man was apparently seen by witnesses at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife late in April loading bags into his boat.
These scenes were also captured by surveillance cameras.
The desperate mother, who also posted videos of the girls on Instagram after her daughters disappeared, had previously assumed that the father had intended to flee to an African country with the children in the boat.
ptz / dpa / Reuters
