It is with great sadness that we report that Yaanis and Mira Mellersh have been found, deceased, in Turkey.

A Europe-wide hunt had been launched to find the two youngsters – who were supposed to be in the custody of their British father – after their German mother, Elke Mellersh, abducted them.

But the search ended in tragedy this weekend when police found the three bodies in a farmhouse in the seaside town of Soke, on Turkey’s Aegean coast.

Deepest sympathies to the Mellersh family, may your little angels rest in peace.

Comment from Ken Thompson, father of a recovered child, Australia.

Since 2010 I’ve been in contact with a father & other members of his family whose children were abducted from Germany by their mother after a long period of non-compliance with Court Orders.

I learned today that the mother has taken her own life & the lives of the two children.

One of the issues I’d occasionally discussed with the family was the comment made by many people (including the authorities) that “…at least the children are with their mother”. This seems to be a standard response & it is one that I heard many times. In my own case I eventually responded with, “That’s the problem, my son is with his mother”.

Don’t ever accept being told that an abducted child is safe because it’s with one of its parents. At the very minimum these children experience extreme emotional abuse at the hands of the abducting parent, & in some cases their lives are brought to an abrupt & tragic end.

Much more effort needs to put into preventing International Parental Child Abduction & much more effort needs to be made to find IPCA victims & have them returned to the countries they were abducted from as quickly as possible. Tragedies like this one are preventable.