The cause of death of a two-year-old boy who went missing in the French Alps remains unexplained, French prosecutors have said, despite the recent discovery of his bones and clothing.
Emile Soleil disappeared in July last year in the small village of Haut-Vernet on the slopes of the Massif des Trois-Evêchés mountain range.
Last week, forensic tests showed that a skull found by a walker near Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, about a 25 minute walk away, belonged to the boy.
Some of the clothes that Emile was wearing, a T-shirt, shoes and shorts, have now also been recovered around 150 metres from where the bones were found.
However, prosecutor Jean-Luc Blanchon said the evidence found so far "does not indicate what the cause of the death of Emile was”.
He added: "Between a fall, manslaughter and murder no hypothesis can be given greater precedence above another to explain the death."
Mr Blanchon said some marks were found on the skull which could have been caused by animals after the boy’s tragic death.
Two witnesses last saw the boy walking down a street near to his grandparents’ home on July 8, where he had arrived the day before to spend the summer holidays.
Long and widespread searches of the area were conducted after the boy’s grandparents noticed he was missing, but he was not found.
However, two days after a re-enactment of his disappearance last Thursday, a local woman who was hiking just over a kilometre from Haut-Vernet stumbled on some of his remains.
“This heart-breaking news was feared, and the time has come for mourning, contemplation and prayer," the child's parents said in a statement.
Questions now remain as to why the boy's skull and clothing had not been detected earlier, despite the large-scale searches involving drones and sniffer dogs.
A spokeswoman for France's gendarmerie has previously conceded that they could have been missed entirely during last summer’s searches, or that they could have been placed there by a person or an animal.
Officials have also said they could have been shifted by changing weather conditions.
