Authorities have detained a 41-year-old mother who stands accused of abandoning her two young sons in a women’s prison known for its challenging environment where inmates intentionally set fires.
The woman, Marine Rousseau, and her partner Marc Ballabriga, 55, are in legal trouble for endangerment and abandonment charges after a five-year-old boy and his three-year-old sibling were found wandering along a rural road in a remote area of Portugal.
The children were discovered blindfolded near an abandoned bus stop in the woods with minimal supplies of fruit and water. A local baker found them and promptly alerted the authorities. The boys are currently under the care of a foster family until they can be reunited with their home country of France.
The couple was apprehended by the Portuguese National Guard while peacefully sitting at a café terrace close to the pilgrimage town of Fátima, approximately 120 miles from where the children were located.
Following her arrest, Rousseau appeared in court singing to herself. She has been remanded to the Tires women’s prison, situated about 12 miles west of Lisbon, a facility known for housing numerous inmates, both awaiting trial and already convicted, handling some of Portugal’s most serious criminal cases. However, it has a history of safety concerns that have put both prisoners and guards at risk.
In recent incidents at the prison, an inmate deliberately started a fire in her cell, leading to five female officers being hospitalized due to smoke inhalation. Additionally, reports emerged of two suspected drug overdoses, one of which resulted in a fatality, prompting the dismissal of the chief prison officer pending an inquiry.
Reports also indicated a series of assaults on guards by inmates, along with past occurrences such as a Covid outbreak infecting over 120 prisoners in 2020 and prisoner deaths in their cells in 2018 and 2021.
Rousseau will remain at Tires until her next court appearance. She is a self-proclaimed “sexologist” who offers online services to assist individuals with trauma recovery and achieving sexual satisfaction. On the other hand, Ballabriga, a former police officer with a history of domestic violence and harassment against the mother of his daughter, is currently being held at Setúbal Prison.
