Paraguay: Vaccination opponents have turned up in South America

Enlarge image

The wanted poster used to search for the four people in Paraguay.

(Since the manhunt is over, the faces are blurred)

Photo: Antisecuestro Department

Exactly 200 days ago, a family criminal case began in Essen and Munich, which came to a temporary end today in Paraguay: Andreas and Anna Egler, both of whom were wanted internationally, turned themselves in with their children to the authorities in the Paraguayan city of Encarnación.

The two adults secretly fled to South America with the two girls from previous relationships at the end of November.

The other parents didn't know about it.

They had been led to believe that the children should go on a weekend trip to London with the couple.

The couple wrote in a farewell letter that the reason for the illegal child abduction was “to protect two sweet children”.

In front of what they saw as “experimental gene injections”, in front of the “harmful mask requirement”, in front of the “permanent issue of illness and death”.

During the course of the pandemic, the Eglers had become classic lateral thinkers and fled the corona measures.

They did not write in the letter where they fled to.

The only difference is that the parents who are left behind "will probably soon have to be grateful to them that our children will not be at the mercy of the madness of the coming time (...)".

After her disappearance, a dramatic search began in Germany and Paraguay.

During the pandemic, the country had become an Eldorado for German opponents of corona measures.

Anne Maja Reiniger, mother of one of the missing girls, traveled to the South American country twice during her search.

SPIEGEL also accompanied the mother in Paraguay for months and published the research at the end of May.

A few days later, a public search was launched in Paraguay for the Eglers and the children.

A press conference held by Reiniger in Asunción, including representatives of the Paraguayan public prosecutor's office, increased the pressure.

Shortly thereafter, the vehicle in which the suspects were last traveling was found on the Paraguayan side in the border area with Argentina.

Hours later, they released the first of two videos in which they demanded - some in tears - that the search for them be stopped.

For their part, the lawyers for the searching parents responded with an open letter in which they called for dialogue.

At the end of last week, Andreas Egler and his wife Anna contacted one of the lawyers involved via the encrypted messenger service.

After the first contact, a marathon of negotiations began, at the end of which there were two main goals: to get the children out of the months-long and illegal flight into the care of the authorities.

And to ensure that the Egler couple have to answer legally for the child abduction in Germany.

"It's not all that easy from a legal point of view," says lawyer Ingo Bott from Düsseldorf, who represents the searching parents and, according to his own statement, negotiated digitally for hours with the Eglers in Paraguay.

There are diplomatic questions, various authorities have to be involved, it's "a fairly unique case".

Clear window of opportunity to surrender

The direct negotiations, in which, according to SPIEGEL information, the topic of corona no longer played a role, ran until Tuesday.

The Egler couple were given a clear time window in which they could present themselves.

They kept to this time window, which would have closed today: They had themselves picked up in Encarnación, the region where the car was found earlier in the week.

According to lawyer Ott, the Eglers went on Thursday with a police escort to the capital, a six-hour drive away, where the children are to be handed over to child psychologists at the responsible civil authority, Defensoría Pública.

The adults will have to go to the police.

How to deal with them on site afterwards has yet to be decided.

All four will probably be able to travel to Europe in the medium term.

The case only came to a temporary end when the couple gave up in Paraguay.

Legally, the Eglers will probably have to answer for the child abduction in Germany.

The custody battle over the children, which will also begin at some point before a German court, is likely to drag on for months.

The Eglers ended the farewell letter from November 2021 with the words: "As soon as possible we will contact you and of course we want to come back as soon as possible when the situation has eased a little." The case and the subsequent search never became known.

Anne Maja Reiniger from Essen and Filip Blank from Munich, whose children had been taken away from them and who have been looking for them for more than six months, now that they know where their children are, no longer want to comment publicly on the case.

In a corresponding press release by the lawyers, they are asked to respect the privacy of all parents and children “in order to ensure that they can return to undisturbed normality in Germany as soon as possible”.

The matter, it is said, no longer differs from a regular family law examination.