A “full-scale” investigation has been launched after two German children were secretly flown out of Malta even though they were under a care order.
Sources said the two brothers – aged four and two – were being accompanied by two German social workers who Appoġġ contacted after their mother, Sabrina Albrecht, 30, from Gera, was charged with abandoning her elder son.
The police pressed charges against the mother after they were called to a field in Marsalforn on June 17 following a report that the boy had been seen behind a bush crying and calling for his mother.
The sources said the boy used to play with friends in a field across the road from the apartment where he lived together with his mother and other people.
The sources added that, when the police arrived on site, they deemed the situation under control and they left, agreeing to patrol the area more frequently.
The matter, however, took a bizarre twist the following day when the police received information that the children and their mothers who were staying in the Marsalforn flat had been reported missing in Germany.
The sources said the mothers were living with a couple, Markus and Sonja Bergfeld, who claimed they ran the Chalk Circle Foundation for Children with Psychological Difficulties.
Ms Albrecht was kept under arrest and a magistrate issued a care order for her two children, ordering Appoġġ to take care of them.
Last week, the two German social workers informed their Maltese counterparts that they were taking the children swimming. However, the sources said, the two brothers, who were living with a foster family, were instead taken to the airport and flown to Germany.
This sparked panic at both Appoġġ and the Foundation for Social Welfare Services ordered an investigation which, the sources said, also involved the police.
The sources said Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia was also informed about the case and was following the developments.
According to the sources, the German social workers said they acted on a decision by a German court on July 4 ordering the children to be returned home.
However, the Maltese authorities are arguing that the Germans had literally abducted the children who were under a care order imposed by a Maltese court.
Ms Albrecht, who remains in preventive custody, denies abandoning her child.
The sources said that when she was informed about her two sons being taken to Germany, some three days after it happened, she instructed her lawyer, Jean Paul Grech, to start proceedings to bring them back to Malta.