Three children in Sweden have been removed from their home after their parents had locked them up for about four months for fear of Covid-19.
The door of the house had been nailed shut, according to the court in Jönköping, in southern Sweden.
The children, aged between 10 and 17, were not allowed to leave the flat between March and the beginning of July, their lawyer Mikael Svegfors told AFP.
They could not see each other and had to eat in their rooms, the court found.
The parents denied that they imprisoned the children against their will and are appealing against their removal, the local radio reported.
They come from "another part of the world" and do not speak fluent Swedish, according to the lawyer. "They couldn't really understand the news here," he said. "They continued to follow the news on the internet from their old country,” where much stricter restrictions applied.
Sweden, unlike most other European countries, did not implement a strict lockdown. Covid-19 has claimed relatively many lives in the Scandinavian country. With 575 deaths per million inhabitants, it is one of the most affected countries in the world.
The Brussels Times
