Two young brothers have been abandoned by their parents in a wooded area in Portugal and left blindfolded.

Barthelemy and Zacharie, aged five and three respectively, were found wandering down a rural road between the towns of Alcacer do Sal and Comporta on Tuesday evening at around 7pm.

A local couple, Eugenia and Artur Quintas, found the boys with nothing more than a change of clothes, two pieces of fruit and two bottles of water on them when they were found on the N235 road.

Artur said: ‘They were crying, they were terrified. They were crying and calling for their father.’

He added that they were both covered in dirt and bruises, and one had hurt his knee. Neither boy had any identifying documents on them.

The Quintases took the young children to their home and called the police, who quickly arrived and took them to Setúbal Hospital for a full health assessment. There, they were given a clean bill of health.

A toxicology report revealed the boys had not been drugged by the parents.

After questioning them, they were able to figure out that the boys had actually come from France.

The boys told authorities that their parents told them they were going to play a game to ‘drive away the devil’.

Their mother, 41-year-old Marine, and stepfather, Marc, blindfolded them and took them to a wooded area, before telling them they could only remove their eye covers once they had found a knife the couple had buried in the ground and used it to cut them off.

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Two young brothers were abandoned by their parents in a wooded area in Portugal

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The boys were taken to hospital to be looked at, and police spoke to them there

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The boys were digging around in the dirt for several minutes before Barthelemy took their blindfolds off. To their shock, the boys realised they were all alone.

Still believing that they were playing a game, the boys wandered the area for several hours through a part of Portugal that can reach up to 30C during the day at this time of year.

Artur told local media: ‘The oldest one told me that he and his brother had gotten lost in the forest and that their father and mother had left without taking them.’

He added: ‘I realised right away that they had been abandoned by the backpacks. When I saw the way the backpacks were packed, I knew they had been abandoned.’

The boys were placed into foster care after information about the boys that was requested from the French embassy in Portugal revealed they had no blood relatives in the country. They are set to be transferred to the French embassy.

Investigative efforts from both Portuguese and French police have so far determined that Marine, believed to be from Colmar in eastern France, disappeared with the two children around two weeks ago before setting off on the road trip to Portugal.

Marine’s mother, the boys’ maternal grandmother, reported the children’s disappearance to police, telling them they had been abducted by their mother.

The boys’ father, who is separated from Marine, also filed a child abduction report to police. Colmar prosecutor Jean Richert told Le Parisien: ‘He’s like everyone else, he doesn’t understand.’

The family entered Portugal on May 11 via Bragança on the Spanish border, having been spotted taking the family car through a crossing.

The family then travelled more than 310 miles, first going to the Miranda do Corvo region before heading further south to Alcacer do Sal.

The couple and their children stayed in a hotel in the town, located around 12 miles from where they were found.

French police are already aware of Marc, who is believed to suffer from a psychiatric disorder.

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The children were left to wander through a wooded area between Alcacer do Sal and Comporta

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They were given nothing more than a change of clothes, two pieces of fruit and some water

As Portuguese police continue their investigation and hunt for the couple, French prosecutors are opening a child neglect case.

On top of this, an ‘urgent legal procedure’ has been opened in the family and juvenile court in Santiago do Cacem, in southern Portugal.

Portuguese police have not formally confirmed that the children were kidnapped and abandoned, with a spokesman saying: ‘All possibilities are being considered.’

Experts fear that the children may suffer long-term psychological harm as a result of being abandoned.

Psychologist Melanie Tavares told CNN Portugal: ‘It’s the feeling of abandonment, of being lost, unprotected, of not having familiar resources to ultimately soothe the fear.’

She said being left in the woods may affect their emotional security and cause sleep difficulties, eating disorders, irritability and isolation.

Tavares said: ‘This will obviously bring, in the coming days, some symptoms to which those caring for these children will have to be very attentive.

‘We are talking about several situations, namely great difficulty in sleeping, falling asleep and maintaining sleep, changes in normal routines, including eating, irritability or even almost permanent isolation, as well as great difficulty, often, in accepting rules and the context in which they are, because none of this is familiar to these children.’

She added that the fact that the parents pretended to be playing a ‘game’ could result in a significant distrust in parental figures.

She said: ‘These children will be in constant distress, a great deal of distress from abandonment, and distress from separation.

‘This is a trauma that will remain, just like when we get a tattoo. It stays for life.’