French police find bones of toddler missing in the Alps

PARIS: French investigators have found the “bones” of a toddler who went missing last summer in a tiny Alpine village and are working to determine how he died, a prosecutor said on Sunday.

The discovery is the first major breakthrough in the case of two-and-a-half-year-old Emile, who vanished on 8 July last year while staying with his grandparents.

Two neighbours last saw him in the late afternoon walking alone on a street in Le Vernet, at an altitude of 1,200 metres (4,000ft) in the French Alps.

“On Saturday, the police was informed of the discovery of bones near the hamlet of Le Vernet,” prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon said. Genetic testing allowed them “to conclude on Sunday that they were the bones of the child Emile,” he added.