The disappearance of the two-and-a-half-year-old child on Saturday July 8 is not the only news to have affected this village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. The town had already been marked by the voluntary crash of a Germanwings airliner in 2015, and by the murder of the owner of a cafe in 2008.
Third tragedy in 15 years, the village of Vernet plunges back into anguish. Five days after the disappearance of Emile, a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, on July 8 at Le Vernet, the investigators’ research did not lead to any new discoveries. And the child is still nowhere to be found. The final search operation carried out Thursday by the gendarmes, in the hamlet of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence did not give anything, indicates the parquet floor of Digne-les-Bains to franceinfo. “No element, in the state, allows to favor one track or another”including the family track, told franceinfo the public prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains Rémy Avon.
This drama brings back painful memories to Christian, resident of the village heard by Véronique Bouvier and Aurélien Casanova, journalists France 3 Provence-Alpes. “Three times, there was this deployment of force in the village, this deployment of the media… it’s starting to get heavy”.
The deliberate crash of an Airbus A320 in 2015
Eight years ago, an airliner crashed in the Trois-Evechés massif, near Vernet. An accident caused by the suicide of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, which resulted in the death of 150 people. “Among my constituents, some rushed to render service, says the mayor of Vernet in Provence. They took turns day and night to bring coffee and other attentions. After the tragedy, several victims are buried in the cemetery of the town. The village also hosts a stele in their memory, and a tribute ceremony bringing together their loved ones.
To reward the inhabitants of the department who got involved after the accident, an invitation to attend a football match in Paris was sent to more than 1,000 of them. The date of the meeting: Friday, November 13, 2015, at the Stade de France, the evening of the attacks. No Bas-Alpin was injured during the attacks.
The murder of Jeannette Grosos in 2008
The Café du Moulin after the murder of Jeannette Grosos
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© INA
Seven years before the crash, the village is also upset by a news item. Jeanette Grosos, the manager of the Café du Moulin in Vernet is beaten to death by a customer in her establishment. Aged 68, she hosted the meetings of the elders of Vernet and was known beyond the village. “Since childhood, we see her, we know her in her trade. There are people who went up from Digne to go up to Jeanette’s” says a resident in 2008, in a report broadcast by the INA. The culprit, a 21-year-old client, is also known in the town, for having worked as a seasonal worker in the local swimming pool. Two dramas still present in the memory of the Vernetois, while the search operations to find the child were definitively stopped this Thursday, July 13.
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