James BryceA DISTRAUGHT mother has pleaded for the safe return of her two young children after they vanished from a park in Cordoba.
Ruth Ortiz has promised ‘forgiveness’ in a moving statement a week after Jose, two, and Ruth Breton Ortiz, six, disappeared while ‘out walking’ with their father.
“Whoever has them, if you let them free, you have my forgiveness,” she wrote in the letter. “I’m not vengeful. I was taught to forgive. I am capable of forgiving and forgetting if I can just see their faces again.”
The moving letter was read out at the end of a silent protest march of 1,200 people in the mother’s home city of Huelva.
City mayor and the family of murdered teenager Marta del Castillo were also present to show their support for the family.
A separate march in Cordoba headed to the park, where the pair went missing on October 8, while spending the weekend with their father, who lives in Cordoba city.
While speculation focussed initially on the father Jose Breton, with discrepancies in his account, police say there is not enough evidence to arrest him.
He was officially the last person to see them alive and police only have his word about what happened in the hours leading up to their disappearance.
He insisted he lost sight of them for ‘a moment’ in the park and a search has been underway ever since.
Police announced they had ruled out finding the children alive, after in depth searches of the father’s home.
