Austrian police find family with 6 children living in cellar
Austrian police said Monday they arrested a 54-year-old man after they found him living illegally in a private wine cellar with a woman and six young children.
BERLIN — Austrian police said Monday they arrested a 54-year-old man after he attacked two social workers with pepper spray when they found him living illegally in a private wine cellar in northeastern Austria with a woman and six young children.
Police in the Austrian province of Lower Austria were still trying to determine the identity of six children, who were from 7 months to 5 years old.
Neighbors in Obritz, a small town near the Czech border, alerted local authorities last week that there was a family living illegally in a local wine cellar.
“Residents sometimes heard children’s voices in the basement,” the town’s vice-mayor, Erich Greil, told the Austrian broadcaster ORF. “As soon as [local residents] approached, it went quiet.”
When two social workers arrived last Thursday to check on the children, police said the man attacked them with pepper spray and barricaded the door to the cellar.
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