Missing Ohio Siblings Found in Iceland

A pair of siblings, ages 8 and 9, were found in Iceland on January 10, two and a half months after they were reported missing in Ohio. The unnamed siblings' mother went off her mental health medication and the kids stopped attending school in October; their apartment was also abandoned, News 5 Cleveland reports. A family member reported them missing to local police, who eventually involved the US Marshals, the State Department, Interpol, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and authorities in England and Iceland, NBC News reports. Their 34-year-old mother had taken them all over the United States before heading overseas to London, then an island in the English Channel, then a remote Icelandic fishing village; they were ultimately found in Reykjavik.

"The children were placed in the care of Iceland social services until a trusted family member could get them. The mother was placed in a hospital where she will remain until she is well enough to travel back to the US," the Marshals Service says in a statement. Adds a US Marshal who was involved in the case, "Sometimes we're able to find [missing children] in a couple hours, a couple days, sometimes a couple counties over, a couple states over, but this is the first time we've been able to find missing kids as far away as Iceland." (More Iceland stories.)