Austrian prosecutors said Monday they have opened an investigation after reports of alleged child abuse at a care facility run by an international charity in the west of the country.
SOS Children’s Villages is an Austria-based charity that supports more than 2.5 million people, mostly children, in over 130 countries through its centres and programmes, helping orphans and others in need.
The investigation came after the charity commissioned an internal study into suspected child abuse, whose contents were revealed last week in local media reports.
The study looked into suspected mistreatment at a care facility in the Austrian town of Imst in Tyrol, but had not been published yet.
Innsbruck public prosecutors on Monday said they had opened an investigation against “unknown perpetrators” over the reports.
They tasked the local criminal police with probing “whether there are grounds for criminal proceedings in eight incidents that were mentioned in the study”, prosecutor Hansjoerg Mayr told AFP.
The incidents “occurred between 2012 and 2020, and are being investigated over alleged abuse and mistreatment of children, including deprivation of liberty and bodily harm”, said Mayr.
Earlier this month, the charity said an external commission had been launched to probe its facilities in Austria following allegations of abuse against children at other care homes, including in Moosburg in Carinthia.
Add Comment