Concern grows over missing girls' disappearance

When 11 year-old Sophie and her 13-year-old sister Valérie, left their father's house in Rheims in northeastern France on Monday morning, he apparently thought they were going off to school.

But they haven't been seen since and instead, a message they left behind saying they would rather take their own lives than be forced to return to their mother, has led police to launch a search for them.

The sisters are at the centre of a custody battle between the mother, who lives in Italy and the father, who lives in France.

The accusations made by both parents are contradictory and confusing, with the only fact certain in the case being that the two girls have not been seen or heard from for nearly five days and neither parent apparently knows of their whereabouts.

The girls were born in Italy and when their parents separated in 2004, it was the mother, Katia Navigante who was given custody of them and their older sister (now 16) by an Italian court.

The father, Rénaldo Gualtieri, says that although he had visitation rights, he wasn't allowed to see his daughters very often and they weren't even permitted to call him.

He maintains the girls were mistreated and threatened by his former wife and her new partner, and that he had a report from Italian social services which confirmed that Navigante put pressure on the two girls to remain quiet.

Gualtieri, said in an interview this week that it had been for the sake of his daughters that he had brought them to France in July 2007 and not as claimed by their mother a case of "abduction."

"It wasn't a kidnapping. It was for their own good because they couldn't put up with the violence and threats by their mother any longer," he said.

The mother though gives a rather different interpretation of what happened. When the girls were taken by their father, she applied to an Italian court to have them returned.

That request was granted and upheld by an appeals court in Rheims. Navigante arrived on Sunday - the day before the girls were due to be handed over - to collect her daughters.

The next day they went missing leaving only the letter behind.

"We prefer to die rather than to return to Italy. Please forgive us."

For Navigante it's clear that her daughters are being hidden somewhere, and she told French television that she didn't believe the girls had "disappeared".

"All of this is a conspiracy, a plot " she said looking at the letters "They didn't write those words of their own free will."

"I have plenty of letters from them and I can tell that these haven't been written with their hearts.

"I think they're being hidden so that they can't return with me.

Navigante's lawyer, Sylvie Dumont-Dacremont, says the children have been put under pressure by their a father they love as much as they fear.

That accusation and the suggestion that he has somehow engineered the disappearance of his daughters has angered and upset Gualtieri.

"I don't know how anyone could say such things," he said. "But in the end, anything can be said as the only thing that matters to me is to find my daughters and be assured of their well being."

Gualtieri offers no explanation as to why the French court upheld the Italian judge's decision to return the two girls to their mother apart from saying that the ruling hadn't been in the best interests of his daughters.

While the police continue their search for the two girls, Navigante has filed an official complaint with the public prosecutor against Gualtieri, accusing him of kidnapping.