17 people were called to participate in the scenario

Family members, neighbors and visual witnesses were summoned on Thursday to the hamlet of Haut-Vernet.

In the case of the disappearance of little Emile, 17 people were summoned to participate, Thursday March 28, in the situation in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), we learned, Wednesday 27 March, franceinfo from the gendarmerie.

This legal operation, a new stage of the investigation eight and a half months after the mysterious disappearance of the two and a half year old boy on the afternoon of July 8, will aim to retrace minute by minute the movements and events, same trivial things, remembered by the people present this afternoon in the hamlet. The idea is to place these people in the same space-time to check the consistency of the different witnesses, in particular those of little Emile’s family and the inhabitants.

In particular from the two neighbors, the last to have seen Emile alive and whose testimonies contradict each other. Drones will help investigators find their way in these very steep places. During all this time and until tomorrow morning, Haut Vernet will be cut off from the world. For what result? After 8 months of investigation without concrete progress, this resident couple doubts the effectiveness of such a deployment of means: “I don’t think it does much because the investigations have been going on since July. It’s painful.”

What is also surprising here at Vernet is that this scenario respects neither the season, nor the weather, nor the times of Emile’s disappearance. Here the mountains are still snow-covered while Emile disappeared in summer, the vegetation was abundant. The light will be different.

Image capture by drones

Access to the hamlet of Haut-Vernet is prohibited by municipal decree, from Wednesday morning until Friday morning. Flying over the hamlet of 25 inhabitants is also prohibited by prefectural decree. 15 gendarmes from the Barcelonnette departmental gendarmerie group, a mobile gendarmerie squadron, a team of drone remote pilots will be mobilized to secure the area, details the gendarmerie.

For the investigation, “20 personnel assigned to the national investigation unit and/or the Marseille research section, the criminal investigation unit of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Departmental Gendarmerie Group (GGD)” will be mobilized. Thus, that a team of drone remote pilots for “this time capturing images for the benefit of investigators”.