Missing US family found safe after fleeing Brazilian pirates
A California couple and their two daughters who had been missing for days after pirates attacked their boat in the Amazon River delta area have been found alive.
Except for insect bites and scratches, Adam and Emily Harteau and their 3 and 7-year-old daughters were in good condition and will spend the night in a hospital, law enforcement officials in Brazil’s northern jungle state of Para said.
The Harteaus were headed to the city of Breves when gunmen boarded the boat they were on and forced it to go the city of Porto dos Dias, said Sergio Chene, a spokesman for Para’s Public Safety Department.
There crew and passengers were held hostage for several hours and stripped of their personal
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belongings before the pirates fled, Chene said. When police arrived there was no sign of the Harteaus.
Police found the van the family had been using in their journey abandoned in the jungle.
It’s unclear how the family escaped the assailants.
Colby Guillory, a family spokesman, said friends and relatives think the Harteaus decided to flee the boat to get away from the pirates.
‘‘Me knowing Adam, he probably took it upon himself to save his family,’' Guillory said. ‘‘We just know that sometime between pirates overtaking the boat and leaving the boat, [the Harteaus] went missing. We think they jumped.’'
When Guillory heard his good friends were safe he said he began ‘‘super excited ugly-crying’'.
‘‘We just can’t wait to have them home,’' he said.
Adam Harteau’s brother, Keith Harteau, said earlier that the attack happened as the family was on its way to move back to California. They were set to arrive in Los Angeles on November 15.
Keith Harteau said the couple wanted to be closer to home and for their girls to be near their family.
‘‘It was their time to get a little bit of foundation,’' he said.
The Harteaus had recently been living in the southern Brazil city of Florianopolis. They have been using a website to document their journey around South America, which began in 2012 as a plan to travel to Patagonia in their Volkswagen van and return to California one year later. – Reuters