French police admitted to being clueless as to where a two-year-old boy is, after vanishing from his family garden.
Little Emile - who lives with his parents close to the port city of Marseille - has been missing since Saturday when he was last spotted in his grandparents' backyard while on holiday with the elderly pair.
At a news conference yesterday, prosecutor Rémy Avon admitted that cops had resorted to searching through masses of public data as they have zero leads.
He told reporters: "At the moment we have no clue, no information, no element that can help us understand this disappearance".
Mr Avon stressed that there had been no progress made since the tot's disappearance but that the investigation was ongoing.
"We are at the same point as the day before yesterday after receiving the two testimonies," Avon said. "We are really pushing the investigations on the ground as much as we can."
In addition to an on-the-ground, door-to-door, search of the local area, cops have been combing local phone directories to determine phone traffic around the time of the disappearance.
Part of this involved checking to see which phones were connected to local cell towers.
"All possible explanations are on the table, we're not favouring any, and we're not ruling any out," added Mr Avon.
Emile's grandparents had been preparing for a day out when they went to collect him from the garden before realising he had disappeared. François Balique, the mayor of Le Vernet, told French TV: "The family was getting ready to leave the house to go on an outing.
"He took advantage of this fleeting moment [of inattention] to leave. His grandparents realised he was no longer there when they went to put him in the car."
The village is surrounded by mountains, valleys, and woodland - with images from the scene showing villagers and tourists searching wilderness spots. Balique said there was no suggestion the boy had been abducted, adding: "It’s a small village with 20 or so houses … we see everything".
Police described the child as 3ft tall with brown eyes and blonde hair and said he was wearing a yellow top, white shorts with a green pattern, and hiking shoes when he disappeared. They have called on anyone with information to come forward.
